


Dem Dry Bones

by AmaraqWolf



Category: Skulduggery Pleasant - Derek Landy
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Gen, Mevolent's War era, Original Character(s), The Dead Men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-07
Updated: 2014-02-08
Packaged: 2017-12-14 05:28:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 21
Words: 61,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/833293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AmaraqWolf/pseuds/AmaraqWolf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lord Vile was, aside from Mevolent himself, the most feared sorcerer during the war. The most powerful Necromancer ever to exist, he spoke little, killed many, appeared out of the blue and vanished just as quickly. </p><p>Where did he come from, and where did he disappear to?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Ghastly's Mistake

**Author's Note:**

  * For [purplejabberwocky](https://archiveofourown.org/users/purplejabberwocky/gifts).



> This entire work contains heavy spoilers for books 1-8, but especially for Death Bringer and Kingdom of the Wicked (6 and 7). In addition to the warnings for graphic depictions of violence, there are sections from Lord Vile's perspective that grow very dark and the murder of a character who, while not major, is at least mentioned in canon.
> 
> This story is based on the characters and head-canons from purplejabberwocky's ‘Dead Men Talking’ and 'Dead Men Walking' series – most notably Rover Larrikin, an Elemental, and Descry Hopeless, an Adept mind-reader.

The atmosphere was tense.

That wasn't normal. Not, particularly, for this room, which Skulduggery didn't care about; he’d never seen it before, and he’d never see it again. But a tense atmosphere outside of a battle wasn't normal for any room with these seven people in it. The atmosphere was usually tense _before_ the Dead Men entered a room. War had that effect. But lighthearted banter and jokes and insinuations, to keep one's sanity and distract oneself from approaching danger, were the Dead Men's specialty. Rover Larrikin and Dexter Vex had once gotten married in the middle of a battle camp, for no reason other than the wedding party they threw afterwards to boost everyone's morale and make everyone laugh.

This tense atmosphere wasn't normal, and it certainly wasn't helping.

No one had said a word yet. Most of them walked in and collapsed on various pieces of furniture in front of the fire, barely making the effort to peel off drenched articles of clothing before they did. The bedrolls in the corner were completely ignored. Skulduggery suspected they wouldn't even be used.

“What _are_ we doing tomorrow?”

Erskine was the one who had asked the question, leaning against the fireplace, arms crossed, nearly the only Dead Man who was still upright.

“ _Dying,_ ” came Dexter’s groaned and muffled response. He’d collapsed on the couch the minute they walked into the room, face buried in one of the cushions. “Erskine, rub my feet.”

“Why should I do that?”

“Because I’m dying, you’re not, and I asked you to. Why else?”

Erskine walked over, took hold of both of Dexter’s ankles, and hoisted him up until he was nearly off the couch, swinging in the air. Then he dropped them, and Dexter landed with a yelp in an unceremonious heap back on the sofa with no idea which way was up or how to untangle himself. Erskine walked calmly back to the fireplace and resumed his earlier position without another word.

Dexter scowled at him through his legs. “That was mean.”

“Was it?” Erskine tipped his head back against the wall. “I didn't notice.”

Everyone was a little irritated. That part, at least, was normal. It happened during a war. It happened, specifically, when the Dead Men failed a mission, and there wasn't even anything to joke over. At least with the entitled mortal baron they'd dealt with a few years back, Skulduggery managed to trick the man into his wife’s clothes before they ran away, severely hampering the furious man’s attempts to chase the trespassers. They’d laughed over that for _days,_ despite the mission falling through.

This was different. A failure they couldn't turn into a joke. Erskine and Dexter would both get over it, as they always did, and the others probably already had. The problem – the reason this wasn't normal – was that Skulduggery couldn't quite say the same for himself.

“Gentlemen.” Rover almost sounded bored, lying on his back on the carpet beside the sofa. “Stop it. You’re both gorgeous. There’s no reason to sabotage each other.”

“We’re both gorgeous?” Dexter flipped himself over and put his chin into his hands. “Should I be jealous, oh dear husband of mine?”

“Face it, Dex. You are not the only gorgeous man in my life. If you’re going to get jealous over every pretty young thing I so much as glance at, we may as well call this whole faux-marriage thing off now.”

“Pretty young thing?” Erskine muttered. “I’m too _old_ for you, Rover, if anything.”

Dexter gasped. It was a very dramatic gasp. “Our _faux_ -marriage? Darling, have you been _toying_ with me all this time?”

Rover grinned and reached up for a pillow off the couch. “Only the best for you, my dear.” He playfully bounced the pillow off Dexter’s face, and then threw it towards Anton. “You. Gist-user. Get over here and massage Dex’s feet before he complains us all to death.”

“Me?” Anton, who had taken the room’s only armchair, didn't even bother moving to avoid the weak-handed throw of the cushion. It landed somewhere at his feet, totally and completely harmless in every sense of the word. “I’d rather not.”

“Erskine won’t do it, Descry’s _never_ done it, Skul’s got bones for hands, and I’m on the floor. You’re the only one left.” Rover frowned and sat up. “Speaking of, where’s Ghastly? He'd probably do it, if Dexter asked him nicely.”

“He said something about grabbing a drink. Dexter, I mean no offence, but right now, I’d rather get up and juggle than touch your feet.”

Dexter muttered something under his breath, but it was a good-natured mutter. His earlier irritation was completely forgotten. Rover Larrikin had that effect on the Dead Men; no matter how terrible a situation got, he was usually ready with a joke or a light comment to ease the atmosphere. Even Erskine, over by the fireplace, was grinning. 

To be technical, Skulduggery was grinning too. But then, he was pretty much always grinning. His skull made it difficult not to. For all intents and purposes, he was just as lighthearted as everyone else was. But he stayed quiet, and he stayed by the door of the room, motionless.

“Could we see this juggling, then?” Descry asked with a sudden smirk.

“Again, I’d rather not. No one's so much as given me the choice yet.”

“You can assume I’m speaking for everyone when I say we’re all giving you the choice right now.”

Anton fixed Descry Hopeless with a steady look. “Then you can tell _everyone_ that they’re going to be sorely disappointed. I said I’d rather juggle. I didn't say I was any _good_ at it.”

Descry sighed. “He’s telling the truth, I’m afraid.”

“I know you’re not any good,” Rover insisted, twisting around on the floor so he was facing Anton. “I've seen you. I want to see you again. I could use a laugh. I think we all could. Skulduggery could, couldn't you, Skulduggery?”

When Skulduggery didn't say anything, they all turned to look at him. Descry’s brow was furrowed slightly, in that way he had whenever he was trying to read the skeleton's thoughts, despite the result always remaining the same. Skulduggery was the only person Descry had ever come across whose mind he couldn't read. The Adept liked to say it was refreshing, being around Skulduggery, being absolutely certain that his mind was his own, but sometimes he seemed more frustrated than anything else. This was one of those times. The rest of the Dead Men were all looking at him with various levels of anticipation and confusion.

This, Skulduggery couldn't exactly ignore to stew in his own thoughts. He'd been asked a direct question. “I’m fine, actually.” When that didn't quite seem enough, he added: “You’re off the hook, Anton.”

“Oh, don’t be a spoilsport,” said Rover. “We don’t have juggling balls. The closest thing we have to juggling balls are your finger bones. Or perhaps your feet.”

“You’re _not_ using my finger bones.”

The sharpness of Skulduggery’s tone surprised them all, and none more than Rover. He physically recoiled from it, eyes wide with surprise. “Relax. I was joking.”

“It was a joke in poor taste.”

“Skulduggery?” Erskine had stepped forward now, all of his earlier annoyance replaced with concern. “We lost _one._ It doesn't mean you were wrong, or that you’re any less intelligent than you normally are.”

That was the problem. It did. The others weren't aware of it, but Skulduggery wasn’t thinking very clearly these days. He couldn't, over the heat of the near-constant anger he felt. The very fact that he was looking on his closest friends now with what could only be described as passive malice was testament to that. Something was wrong. Something was very wrong. Skulduggery hadn't wanted to believe it, had been putting off doing anything about it - or even so much as _mentioning_ it - but this was getting out of hand. The Dead Men deserved much better than what he could currently offer them. 

Skulduggery straightened up before he could change his mind. “I need a walk.”

“Want anyone to come with you?”

“No.” He hesitated, consciously removed the sharpness from his voice, and tried again. “I’ll find Ghastly. Good night.”

And he left them looking even more confused than they had before.

~~

“Skulduggery.”

The word came out before Ghastly could stop it, but he didn't resent his own tongue for it. He’d agonised over this conversation for months, but now that it looked like it might actually happen, he felt surprisingly calm.

The skeleton turned at the sound of his name, and that was it. Didn't make an attempt to leave again, but didn't give any indication that he’d even seen Ghastly, let alone that he was willing to stay and talk. Of course, he must have seen Ghastly. Skulduggery had probably known that Ghastly was there from the moment he walked into the hall. He just hadn't cared enough to say so. That might have hurt, if it hadn't become the skeleton's new attitude recently.

With barely a breath, Ghastly stepped out of the shadows. “Where are you going?”

Silence. Then, “I’m not sure yet.”

“But you were going to leave anyway? Not a word, not a note, not anything, just… leave?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

Skulduggery didn't answer, but he didn't need to. The casual observer might have accused him of deserting the war, abandoning his comrades right when they most needed him. But Ghastly knew Skulduggery; he knew how much the skeleton sorcerer had invested in the war. Skulduggery would never up and leave one day without a compelling reason.

And that, Ghastly realised with a sharp intake of breath, was the problem. Before this, before the Dead Men, before even Skulduggery’s death, Ghastly might have referenced Skulduggery’s loyalty as the main reason why he wouldn't abandon his friends, not some unhealthy determination. It was a loyalty Skulduggery still had, to some extent, and if there was any group of people in the world he still felt _anything_ for, it was the Dead Men. And yet, slowly but surely, everything that made Skulduggery the man Ghastly thought he knew was vanishing.

His resolve firmed. “Let us help you.”

“Help with what?”

“This. Whatever _this_ is. Is it Liliya?" Skulduggery had mentioned his wife's name once since his death, and he'd very quickly cut off when he realised what he'd said. "Your daughter? Have you even grieved yet?"

"No."

The word was much too flat. It wasn't the answer itself that worried Ghastly; it was how Skulduggery didn't even seem to care about hiding his lack of emotion anymore. There was a time when appearances meant everything to the detective, when he solved puzzles and explained mysteries as much for the satisfaction of others' awed reactions as for the puzzles and mysteries themselves. That time, it seemed, was long gone. "Please," Ghastly tried. "Don’t just leave and tackle things on your own.”

A noise that could have been laughter, but… wasn’t. It was something else, something Ghastly couldn't quite pinpoint – or wanted to. “What do _you_ think is wrong?”

“Don't. Don’t do that. Don’t round this back on me.” Ghastly took a deep breath. “Skulduggery, you should be dead. Everyone knows that, and nobody talks about it, because you’re still you and no one can really understand why. _You_ don’t understand, either. This is magic no one has ever touched, magic that shouldn't exist. The closest Necromancers have ever gotten is creating shuffling zombies, for God’s sake. And you’re honestly going to stand there and try to tell me nothing’s wrong?”

“Why are you only saying this now? You were the one who vouched for me when Meritorious raised the same questions.”

“I know I did. And I still stand behind that. But you’re getting worse.”

Skulduggery’s head tilted slightly. Ghastly tried to ignore the pang of guilt the familiar action induced, as well as the uncomfortable silence that followed. When it became clear Skulduggery wasn’t going to say anything, Ghastly cleared his throat to break it.

“I don’t know if you've noticed, but you hardly joke anymore. You barely even _laugh_.”

“We’re in the middle of a war.”

“And that’s never stopped you before.”

“I've never watched my family getting murdered before.”

There was a hard edge to the words. Ghastly had to fight not to back down, like he had every time before, and shook his head. “You're not getting off that easily. This is recent, Skul. You’re slipping. Slipping on more than just misplaced grief.” Skulduggery had a lot of adjusting to do when he was finally found, half-mad with the pain of being tortured, killed, and then forced to pull himself back together. But he’d gotten through it, just as Ghastly had known he would. Started joking about his new state of being, once he’d satisfied himself that his jaw wouldn't fall off. 

And even then, there’d been... something. Ghastly had dismissed it, because you dismissed a lot when your best friend was killed and brought back as a living skeleton right after watching his family being tortured to death. Ghastly didn't begrudge not noticing anything then. He _did_ begrudge not doing something about all this sooner.

“I want to help.” His voice had grown softer now. “We all do. I trust you, Skulduggery. Do you?”

“Ghastly.” The skull shook itself from side to side. “I've trusted you since the moment you got us both off that pirate ship.”

“No. I meant do you trust yourself?”

He had no answer to that, just as Ghastly suspected. Skulduggery had admitted freely to not trusting himself right when he was first resurrected – there was no telling if he was under someone else’s control. The fact that he felt he had to hide it now... 

Ghastly took a step forward. “Come on, Skulduggery. _Let us help._ ”

For what felt like an eternity, neither of them moved. Against all of his better judgment, Ghastly felt a sliver of hope lift its unwanted head. It warmed him slowly from the inside.

Skulduggery shifted. “Thank you. I appreciate it. But…”

The warming hope dashed itself on freezing rocks.

“… but I think I’m beyond help.”

_No,_ Ghastly wanted to say. _You’re not. You hesitated. You’re still thinking about this._

But he said nothing out loud, because Skulduggery would not be convinced through mere words. In fact, words and baseless pleas to stop and _think_ would only cement his decision. The best chance any of them had now was to let Skulduggery do what he thought was best, and just… hope that it would eventually turn into what _was_ the best.

Skulduggery turned and started walking out. Ghastly was gripped with the urge to run and drag him back, but the urge came and went. Instead, Ghastly folded his arms against a sudden chill in the stone corridor. “We have a meeting in the morning. Don’t forget that.”

There was no response, and Skulduggery didn't slow down. Ghastly watched him disappear around the corner, and listened to his unnaturally quiet footsteps slowly fading away.

That last conversation, in the stone hallway, Ghastly would replay in his mind every day for the next five years, trying to decide what he should have done differently or why he hadn't gotten through to his oldest friend. Skulduggery wasn’t at the meeting in the morning. Corrival didn't ask why, and didn't even seem curious about where the skeleton was. It wasn’t until a few days later, without any sign of Skulduggery’s return or any form of contact, that the Dead Men decided to assign themselves their newest mission – tracking him down.


	2. Vile Mist

The first and most obvious course of action was finding a Sensitive they could trust.

You would think, with Mevolent on the rise and all hell about to break loose, that any Sensitive powerful enough to see a future where Mevolent won the war would be volunteering to fight at the nearest Sanctuary. But Sensitives were a wide and varied bunch. Most had no idea who would win the war, or what would happen. Those who did, those who had first-hand knowledge, were split down the middle. There were those content to observe, to trust that things would simply turn out for the best; and then there were those who just didn't really care anymore.

A lot of Sensitives were arrogant. Not badly, or through any fault of their own, but having abilities that put even other sorcerers on their guard was enough to drag anyone up a few pegs. As a result, the few Sensitives who did enlist to fight went right where they were most needed without a second thought, which meant that even with their fewer numbers they weren't exactly in high demand.

For the Dead Men, that meant finding a Sensitive who wouldn't talk to anyone else about their meeting should have been a damn near impossible feat. The only source any of them trusted was Meritorious, and quite aside from not wanting even him to know Skulduggery was missing, none of them really relished the idea of going to him for help. Descry used to be Meritorious's most trusted confidante. With Descry keeping more and more of the Dead Men’s secrets from Meritorious every day, they needed to be careful.

Fortunately for them, Skulduggery loved getting himself into trouble. Or at least, that was what Ghastly said.

"What does _that_ have to do with anything?" Rover had demanded. "Unless you're about to tell us that Skulduggery's mother was a Sensitive, I'm very skeptical. Isn't Skulduggery meant to be a blank spot where Sensitives are concerned?" 

Ghastly hadn't bothered to explain, and after the initial objection, no one asked. In Descry's case, he didn't need to, but he didn't tell the others either, for which Ghastly was grateful. It was impossible to be too careful about eavesdropping. Besides which, he was rather looking forward to seeing the expressions on his friends’ faces.

It was a small country cottage, far outside of the city. They’d hiked for the better part of a day to get here. It looked normal enough, and could easily have been the home of anyone living this far out. Add a barn and some crops behind it, and it could have been a farm. The only thing that marked it as slightly out of the ordinary was several little dolls hanging from the rafters of the porch, swaying slightly in the breeze.

“A Sensitive lives here?” Erskine asked, one eyebrow raised. “Really? I thought all the hermits lived out in caves and the like.”

“I was imagining a volcano,” Dexter nodded. “Or crashing waterfalls.”

So had Ghastly, at first. He’d been just as nonplussed as the others were now to hear from Skulduggery that one of Ireland’s most powerful Sensitives lived in a little cottage. He gestured up at the dolls – dream catchers, if he remembered correctly. Strange-looking things. “She’s as strange as all the rest, believe me. But at least she likes living in the present.” 

“She?” Rover piped up. “You didn't mention she was a she. Why not? Descry, why didn't you say anything? It sounds to me like vital information we should have been given from the start.”

Descry shook his head. “Only to you.”

“That’s not true. Aren't female Sensitives supposed to be crazy? We should know if we’re about to walk into a crazy person’s house. It could be a trap.”

Anton’s voice had the weary tone of someone far too accustomed to dealing with the antics of someone like Rover. “And the _danger_ of a crazy female Sensitive is what you’re interested in, is it?”

Rover shrugged. “The crazier the better, they say. I just want to test it for myself. What’s wrong with that?”

Descry grunted, but didn't say anything. Ghastly decided he didn't especially need to know what Rover was thinking. Judging by the silence, everyone else had come to the same conclusion. “She’s not crazy,” he said, partly to dispel the silence, partly because Rover had opened his mouth. “A little distant, but that’s it.”

“And why can we trust her, exactly?” asked Erskine.

Ghastly looked around, but he didn't really need to. It was fairly safe to assume there was no eavesdropping magic around a Sensitive’s home. “Skulduggery saved her life a few years ago. She hasn't forgotten it. She wants no part of the war, but I can guarantee you she’ll want to help find him. And she won’t tell anyone else, assuming anyone else ever finds her here.”

The door was answered after about a minute, and Cassandra Pharos was standing there. She was, just as Skulduggery had described, normal. Barely even distant, even when she spoke. She smiled warmly when she saw Ghastly, predictably didn't need to be told who he was. Ghastly introduced himself anyway. Maybe it was because of his mother, but he’d never really been truly comfortable around people who chose to see the future throughout their extended lifespans.

The inside of Cassandra’s cottage was just as ordinary as the outside. In fact, some of her furniture was probably more expensive than that of middle-class citizens in the city, although a lot of it looked old and worn. And, just like the porch outside, she had dozens of the little dolls hanging from her ceiling. Rover glanced up at them with interest, and he wasn’t the only one. “What are the dolls for?”

Cassandra smiled. “Dream whisperers. If you keep one next to you while you’re sleeping, it remembers your dreams, and it whispers them back to you.”

Rover nodded. “Yes. Definitely not crazy.”

Cassandra, to her credit, ignored him completely. “I knew all of you would be coming. I didn't know why, but if it doesn't have something to do with Skulduggery, I’d eat my teapot. What does he need?”

Ghastly wasn’t sure exactly when he took the lead on this mission, started coming up with the ideas and making the decisions. Maybe it was because asking Cassandra for help was his idea. Maybe it was because he’d known Skulduggery the longest. Either way, no one answered her until he did. “Skulduggery’s missing.”

“He left a few days ago,” Erskine added. “No one’s seen him since. We have no idea where he went.”

Cassandra blinked. “And you immediately assume something terrible happened to him?”

“What else could it be? He doesn't abandon things.” _Or people,_ was the silent implication there.

“No,” Cassandra agreed, growing a gentle smile. “He doesn't. But this war has been dragging. It’s enough to change anyone’s mind about practically anything. Add to that his family, his murder, his resurrection into something no one living has ever understood, and are any of you really that surprised?”

“He left without a word,” said Ghastly. _Or he would have._ “And he’s been… different, lately. Something’s wrong. He won’t talk about it.” 

“You think he deliberately got himself into trouble?”

Nobody spoke. Ghastly almost thought he could hear the little whispers of the dream-dolls hanging from the ceiling. In the awkward silence, he noticed that Cassandra was the only person in the room to have thought about sitting down, and even she never quite got there. She was currently leaning against the edge of a sofa facing the rest of them. Eventually, the Sensitive took pity on them and her smile faded. “You think he deliberately got himself into trouble.”

“Not exactly,” said Anton. “We think that he doesn't _care_ about getting into trouble anymore.”

“And you want me to find him for you.”

They all nodded.

Cassandra sighed. “Even though he might be perfectly fine. Even though he probably doesn't _want_ to be found. Even though I’d be betraying his trust to help his friends do what he so clearly doesn't want them to do.” 

Ghastly took a step forward. “Cassandra, we wouldn't be trying to track him down if any one of us thought there was a chance he was ‘perfectly fine.’ He’s been a different person this last year. Angry. Quiet. Making spur-of-the-moment decisions he wouldn't normally make. He's lost us at least two missions, and he doesn't seem to care. He can’t die, Cassandra. For whatever reason, he can’t die, and he’s been through hell. If he’s given up, and he _can’t_ give up, what do you think he would do? What _can_ he do?”

And that was really what it all came down to. As far as anyone could guess, Skulduggery was able to exist because his consciousness was somehow bound to his skeleton. He could be losing pieces of it, slowly, over time, and there was no way to know. Skulduggery himself didn't understand it. _Wouldn't_ understand it. If he’d realised that a slow, torturous demise was a distinct possibility, he might have purposely distanced himself from the rest of the Dead Men to spare them that pain.

Which was incredibly foolish of him, and Ghastly would have to beat that out of him the instant Cassandra located him. 

Cassandra had been giving Ghastly a long, level look. Now, she slowly straightened up and eyed them all with the same sort of gaze Descry wore when one of them had a really stupid idea that the mind-reader was halfway seriously considering. She thought they were a group of overprotective and idiotic brothers, which meant she couldn't quite believe that she was about to agree to their plan.

She nodded once, firmly. “I’ll look. If nothing’s wrong, I’m not telling you a thing about where he is.”

“Fair enough.”

A couple of the others looked about to object – Dexter, Rover, maybe Erskine – but no one did. 

She led the group into her cellar without really offering a clear explanation as to why. Unlike the rest of the cottage, Cassandra’s cellar was anything but ordinary. It wasn’t built out of the earth, or damp stone. Most of the large room, in fact, was built of iron. There were hot coals under the floor; even through his shoes, Ghastly could feel that. For a cellar, the air was uncomfortably warm. Otherwise, the room was empty save for one wooden chair at the back, and an umbrella leaning up against it.

“This is where the magic happens,” Cassandra said as she walked over to the chair. “This room creates mist, and normally, you would see what I see in the mist. I don’t know if that will happen this time.”

“Why wouldn't it?”

“Skulduggery seems immune to most Sensitive-based magic, which you,” she pointed at Descry, “should very well know. It should still work, but the rules might be a little different. The mist might stay clear. It might not. I’m only warning you because I don’t really want anyone blaming me if one of you accidentally dies.” 

She had gotten all the way to the chair and sat down with the umbrella before she caught a glimpse of their faces, and she smiled. “I’m joking. Would an Elemental do the honours of making it rain, please?”

"How do you know about Descry?" Anton was the first to ask. He'd shifted his weight ever-so-slightly onto his back foot, a defensive stance Ghastly only noticed out of the corner of his eye because he, and likely most of the Dead Men, were mirroring it. The Gist-user had a right to be concerned. Descry Hopeless was the only sorcerer in existence to be able to passively read minds so deeply; there were plenty of people, even on Meritorious's side, who would have killed him if they discovered what he could do. It was so instinctive for the Dead Men to keep his mind-reading a secret that to have someone so plainly tell _them_ about it was not only jarring, it was flat-out terrifying.

"Please," said Cassandra. "I've known since before he was born. I've never told anyone, and I never plan to."

They all looked over at Descry. His eyes were on Cassandra, piercing and searching, but since he didn't look particularly worried, Ghastly let himself relax. 

"Does anyone else know?" Erskine asked.

Cassandra's gaze flickered over to Descry. She'd probably assumed, and quite rightly, that they'd only accept an answer if Descry said it. Descry had never actively lied to the Dead Men. Misled, occasionally, or outright said he wasn't able to tell them about something if he honestly couldn't. But he'd never lied.

After a moment, he shook his head. "Not as far as Cassandra knows. And I think if any other Sensitive does, their reasoning is very similar to hers."

"So there's nothing to worry about?"

"There's always something to worry about," Descry pointed out with a wry smile. "But in regards to my premature death at the hands of an ally? Probably not."

Erskine was the first to recover, forcing a chuckle as he condensed the considerable amount of moisture in the air. Ghastly and Rover quickly followed suit, and it wasn’t long before the water splashing against the hot coals caused a blanket of steam to billow up around them, obscuring Cassandra from view.

None of them dared break the hissing silence, but they caught each other’s gazes now and then as time seemed to keep stretching on. Ghastly caught a grin on Rover’s face at one point, echoed immediately on Descry's. He resisted the urge to ask what _that_ was about.

After what felt like close to an hour, the mist grew dark.

“He’s gone,” came Cassandra’s voice. _Now_ it was distant. Distant, and dreamy, but filled with genuine worry. “I can’t find him anywhere.”

Dexter frowned. “You’re not looking hard enough.”

“I've looked everywhere,” she replied, almost with a hard edge to her voice. It probably _would_ have been a hard edge, if she wasn’t lost in wherever Sensitives went when they were focusing like this. “He has a very specific… a very specific signature. It's hard to describe. I wouldn't miss it, and it isn't… it isn't anywhere.” She hesitated. “That can only mean that he’s dead.” 

Something in Ghastly’s gut went cold. 

“Dead?” Even Rover’s normally carefree voice was more sombre than usual. “Well, we knew that. Of course he’s dead. He’s a skeleton. Anton, I think we should ask for our money back.”

“We didn't pay anything.”

“We should ask for our time back, then. Maybe we should get a free palm-reading each. I could do with a free palm-reading.” 

“Why do you say he’s dead?” Ghastly asked, keeping an eye on Descry as he spoke. Descry had never learned any real control, and probably never would. While he was able to keep to what he called a ‘skimming’ level of someone else’s mind if he had to, the Dead Men were always careful around actively practicing Sensitives. If Descry got lost, he wouldn't know how to pull himself out. Fortunately, the psychic was still upright, still looked calm. Erskine and Dexter were both hovering near him, just in case.

When Cassandra still didn't answer, Ghastly repeated the question. “What do you mean, he’s dead?”

The thickening fog was starting to make it hard to breathe. Ghastly had to resist the urge to lessen the moisture in the air. The mist, inexplicably dark, swirled up from the coals underfoot in a hissing cloud, curling lazily around their feet to leave only their shoes visible. It intensified in the air, keeping their faces impenetrably hidden, making it impossible to see so much as a hand in front of one's eyes.

Cassandra answered from within that fog, and the place her voice was coming from was the only way Ghastly could keep some sense of direction. “I don’t know what else this could mean.”

“What else _what_ could mean?”

“He’s gone.” Cassandra’s voice quite definitely had a sharp edge now, angry at something Ghastly couldn't identify, jarring as it mixed with her otherwise distant tone. “I can’t find him. All there is where he should be is black.”

“Black?” Erskine echoed from somewhere to Ghastly’s left. “Couldn't that just mean he’s immune to your magic, like you said?”

Cassandra scoffed. “There’d be nothing, in that case. Black is something. Black is something I've never seen before. Not on this scale. This is powerful magic. This is powerful, powerful magic, and I think it’s killed Skulduggery.”

The cold feeling in Ghastly’s gut threatened to suffocate him. Black, like what they were seeing in the mist. It sent shivers down the tailor’s spine. “How?” he demanded. “How do you kill a skeleton?”

For a long moment, Cassandra said nothing. The coals simmered and hissed, the fog swirled, and Ghastly waited.

“Necromancy.”

There was a sharp intake of breath from someone – Ghastly couldn't tell who. Everyone else was silent.

Another minute passed, and just as Ghastly was about to try and say something else, Cassandra’s voice once again cut through the silence without warning or fanfare. “See for yourself.”

In the blink of an eye, the fog turned pitch black.

The darkness from before had been mostly faded, as if it spent too long under a hot sun. A gentle black. A secondhand, baby black. This new version wasn’t a normal black - it wasn’t the absence of colour, it wasn’t the expansive and mysterious black of the night sky. It was a black so deep, so piercing, and so overwhelming that Ghastly found himself struggling to keep his balance. His breath caught in his throat and hitched in his lungs. It was as if not just his eyes, but his whole body were being hidden by a blindfold. 

Cassandra was right. The black was flickering around the edges, like shadows. Layers upon layers of shadow. Necromancy. Powerful Necromancy./p>

Ghastly’s jaw tightened. And if there was one branch of magic guaranteed to be able to kill anything… “Who was it?”

“I’m not sure.” The blackness faded once again, turning gentle and washed before it drifted from the fog entirely, leaving it a startling white. “Someone new, I think. New, but important. He’s echoing all around the landscape. I’m going to try and see what role he plays in this war.”

Images flashed through the mist, too fast and too vague for Ghastly to be able to make out anything more than blurry figures against colourful landscapes. He was standing on air, and flying through time. A battle was being fought below. Then two people hugging. Then mountains.

And then the images stopped.

There was a man. A tall man. Dressed head to foot in what might have been medieval armour if it wasn’t constantly shifting. Black on black, like the deep fog from before, it flowed over the man as if it were no more substantial than water. Ever-changing. Ever-adapting. As Ghastly watched, the armour grew angry spikes of shadow, spikes that curled protectively around him like a shield and shot out to skewer three dim running figures in the distance. There was no cane, no sword, and no dagger focusing that much raw power – at least, not as far as Ghastly could tell. It must have been the armour. But even then, the wielder had to be… _beyond_ powerful. The shadows almost seemed to obey his intent, rather than his command. A natural-born Necromancer, at the very least.

A bubble expanded out from the armour-clad man. Whatever it was, even the illusion of it through a Sensitive’s magic was parting the mist before it. A ring of clearing fog, moving further out, with the fog rushing back in after it to fill the empty space. The ring passed through Ghastly, and his entire body seized up for the briefest of moments. The power of that increasing ring released him easily – because it was only an _illusion_ , for God’s sake – but it was like his limbs needed an extra few seconds to realise that for themselves. The ring expanded to the edges of the room, shuddered in place, and then drew back into the armour-clad man as easily and as quickly as if it were magnetised to him.

All the reflected images of people in the fog caught within that circle dropped to the ground like rag dolls. Ghastly didn't need to ask to know that they were dead.

Skulduggery was dead, and this armour-clad man had killed him.

“He calls himself Lord Vile.” Cassandra’s voice retreated back into the dreamlike quality it had before, and yet Ghastly could hear the fear in it. The disgust. “He’s laying low for right now. Probably in the Temple. But mark my words – he will join Mevolent’s forces, and he will do so within the year.”

_We’re going to lose,_ Ghastly thought wildly. The world was going to crumble against a man who could kill what looked like hundreds without raising a finger.

The mist was starting to clear up, and with it the image of the armour-clad man – Lord Vile. Even so, the image had been burned into Ghastly’s mind. He closed his eyes, trying to blink it away, if only because he wouldn't be the only Dead Man struggling with the information and he didn't want to make things any harder on Descry. But he couldn't shake it. He couldn't shake the image of that intangible ring that brought immediate death.

He couldn't shake the idea that if Skulduggery’s soul was reamed from his body, once again, was he still unable to move on? Was he standing here, right now, watching them?

~~

Descry handled it better than they predicted. At least, he remained upright, even if his legs were stiff and his eyes were very carefully blank. They left Cassandra’s cottage behind them, walking in silence, not a single one of them meeting anyone else’s gaze. The mid afternoon sun beat relentlessly down on them, and Cassandra’s last words were ringing in Ghastly’s ears.

_”Please, avenge his death.”_

Nobody had answered her, and no one had yet spoken a word.

It wasn’t just this new threat of Lord Vile, Ghastly knew. It was Skulduggery. It had been an unspoken agreement among them that no matter how terrible things got, no matter how hopeless the chances of success seemed to fall, they would still be a team. Still alive, and still together. Skulduggery, in particular, would survive anything. He couldn't die. He was the beacon of hope in an endless war. The miracle soldier.

If Skulduggery could die, morale was going to drop. If Skulduggery could be _killed_ , that was worse. And if Skulduggery’s murderer was too powerful for any of them to take the revenge they all so desperately desired…

Ghastly’s mouth was a grim line as they hiked along the crest of a hill. Maybe they’d all started to take their nickname a little too seriously.

“Rover.” Dexter had been taking up the rear, but when he stopped walking, they all did. “Make a joke.”

Rover turned to face him. “What?”

“You've usually said something funny by now. Anything. Just to lighten up the atmosphere.”

There was a look in Rover’s eyes Ghastly didn't see there very often. Something hollow, something empty. “I don’t feel like it.”

“You _always_ feel like it. Right when we most need it. You’re always there.”

Rover didn't say anything, but he didn't take his eyes off Dexter. Dexter waited a beat, and then his eyes narrowed. “So why not now?” the Adept demanded, his voice slowly growing louder as he spoke. “Just one? Just a small one. I can start you off. Something about the name Lord Vile. It’s ridiculous. It's completely pretentious. Or how quickly Cassandra Pharos changed her mind. What about how her basement was like a combination between a waterfall and a volcano? What about those dolls? What about…?” His voice trailed off in a faltering stutter before it came back twice as hard as before. “Stop looking at me like that. Stop looking at me and say something funny. _Say something funny, damn you._ ”

Rover took one step forward and pulled Dexter into a hug.

For a long few minutes, nothing moved but the gentle breeze in the long grass. Ghastly looked away and up into the sky, trying not to think. He couldn't see a single cloud. Nothing to offset the glare of the sun. Such beautiful weather for such a debilitating discovery. Ghastly would have preferred it to be raining.

Eventually, Rover’s voice came muffled through the collar of Dexter’s shirt. “It’s the job of the husband to worry, you know. All the wife should have to do is plan large expensive parties.”

Dexter laughed, a short and surprising laugh that ended in a half choking sob. “I told you. I wasn't the bride.”

“You can say that all you want, but everyone in camp agreed I’m the man of the relationship.”

It was hollow. It was so, so hollow. But Dexter was right; in a way, it helped. The memory of the exquisitely planned wedding done solely for the morale-boosting wedding party afterwards took Ghastly’s mind off that shadow-spiked armour. He took a deep breath, and forced a smile onto his face. “Skulduggery’s always been a contradiction. Leave it to him to go dying before the rest of us could.”

It was just as forced, but it opened a gate. Erskine was the first to go through it. “You know, he’d never let us live it down if we couldn't take care of a single Necromancer.”

“Or a lord,” Descry added solemnly. “Of any kind. Remember when he tricked that baron into wearing his wife’s clothes?”

Anton smiled faintly. “I remember having to abandon that mission and leave the manor house very, very quickly. Corrival wasn’t pleased.”

Erskine shook his head. “No, he wasn’t. But I heard him tell the story to Meritorious later. He was laughing. He puts up with so much from us that I think he’s given up arguing the little things.”

“He won’t be happy with this,” Dexter murmured.

The whole group quickly sobered, and Ghastly nodded shortly. “We’re going to have a new mission soon.”

War didn't end because a friend died. And Lord Vile was going to have to be taken care of. Who better to send after him than a group of sorcerers with revenge on their minds and in their hearts, renowned for their manipulation of the element of surprise and famous for their ability to return alive?


	3. Vilest of Places and Vilest of People

_“Skulduggery, you should be dead. Everyone knows that, and nobody talks about it, because you’re still you and no one can really understand why. You don’t understand, either. This is magic no one has ever touched, magic that shouldn't exist. The closest Necromancers have ever gotten is creating shuffling zombies, for God’s sake. And you’re honestly going to stand there and try to tell me nothing’s wrong?”_

Skulduggery had given it thought. He’d given it much more thought than was strictly healthy. When he died – when Serpine pointed his red right hand at him, and the searing pain finally started to fade – he’d… drifted. There wasn’t really another word for it. Drifted, without emotion, without thought, without substance, for spans of time he didn't mark and barely noticed. 

Thinking became easier with time. Exactly how much time was difficult to pinpoint, but there came a moment when Skulduggery realised he’d thought this was what normally happened after death.

But it wasn’t. It couldn't be. He’d never come across anyone else just drifting.

With that realisation, he’d finally managed to focus his attention on important things. Important things like what was actively happening in the world. And to Skulduggery's horror, he'd learned from various bouts of gratuitous eavesdropping that the war they’d been _winning_ when he died, they were now _losing._ The tide was slipping, slowly but surely, in the opposite direction, and it was because of him. Because he and the other leaders caught in Serpine’s trap demoralised the troops enough to _let_ the tide turn.

Anger was the first emotion he could remember feeling. And it felt so _good_ , after so long of feeling nothing, that he hadn't seen anything wrong with letting it grow. Letting it become his anchor. Allowing it to let him think again. And, before Skulduggery knew it, that same anger was what yanked him back.

Back to his skeleton.

He hadn't known it at the time. All he’d known was that he was somewhere else. Somewhere dark, churning, and _painful_. It had taken him a process of months to tumble out of the river he’d been tossed into, drag himself out of the sack, and put his skeleton back together. By the time Skulduggery had finished, he’d been overflowing with so much undirected fury that he barely recognised the sorcerers who eventually found him. 

He’d barely recognised Ghastly.

Right now, on this cold and foggy Dublin morning, he felt an awful lot like he had back then. Angry at nothing. Devoid of hope. His wife’s dying scream kept replaying in his mind, and Skulduggery didn't have a way to take his mind off it or make it stop. He couldn't sleep. He couldn't eat. He couldn't drink. He couldn't exercise. The only real reprieve from the pain he had these days was punching people.

He didn't know what he would have done, if they weren't in the middle of a war. Gone catatonic? Become the very sort of criminal he used to track down and stop?

Why hadn't he been able to die? Why was he barred from moving on?

Why wasn’t he allowed to join his family?

_"This is magic no one has ever touched, magic that shouldn't exist. The closest Necromancers have ever gotten is creating shuffling zombies, for God’s sake."_

_Necromancers._

The closest they’d ever gotten? Hardly. Skulduggery had never believed that, even when he was alive. Necromancers were a secretive bunch, because they toyed with dangerous magic they didn't understand. The only result they’d ever publicly shared was the ability to create shuffling zombies. That didn't mean it was the closest they’d ever gotten to understanding death.

Skulduggery stopped in the middle of the street as the first drops of rain began to fall, and stared up into the sky. The Necromancer Temple. If anyone, _anywhere_ , had any idea what might have happened to him and how to fix it, they would.

Solomon Wreath probably would.

The problem was walking into the Necromancer Temple. Because Necromancers were such a secretive bunch, they tended to frown on outsiders. And Skulduggery’s dislike of them and their magical discipline wasn’t exactly a well-kept secret. 

An idea occurred to him. It wasn’t the best idea, and there were so many faults and setbacks in it that the idea could barely hold water, but it was the only one Skulduggery had at his disposal. And so, without a second thought, he pulled his cloak tighter around himself and continued on down the empty street. 

~~

The blacksmith stared down at the large slabs of metal on the worktable in front of him.

It was a very high-quality metal. A combination between platinum, palladium, and silver. He’d been searching for an amount of platinum like this for well over a century, but Russia was the only place in the world where it could be mined, and so it was used only for Russian roubles. He would, he was fairly sure, have killed someone to get his hands on this much platinum. And now, here it was. Sitting on his worktable.

Smithaz glanced back up at the skeleton. “Are you feckin’ serious?”

“No. Just serious.”

“Where did you – no, I don’t want to know. Where – no. No, it doesn't matter. Are you feckin’ _serious?”_

“Completely.”

“You want me to forge this into armour?”

“Can it be done?”

“Can it be – ” Smithaz burst out laughing. “O' course it can! This is platinum we’re talkin' about! I can forge it into just about anythin'!” He sobered after a moment, and regarded the shining metal with a new eye. “Weavin' magic into it’s goin' to be a bit harder, but I can do it. It’ll cost ya, but I can do it.”

“How much?”

“Uh…” To be honest, Smithaz had no idea. Theoretically, he could ask for anything. He could ask for the world. Hell, he could ask for the platinum itself if he wanted, and the only reason he was even still debating it was that he rather liked Skulduggery. The skeleton had always done right by him in the past. “Dunno. How much are you offerin’?”

“Half the platinum, and as much as gets left over after you forge the armour. Any of the leftovers. They're yours.”

Smithaz’s mouth went dry. “Half the bloody – alright. Alright. What’s the stupid idea?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Skulduggery, you come and ask me for things when you have stupid ideas you don’t want anyone else to know about. I wasn't goin' to ask, but - what the hell do you need a set of medieval armour for?”

“Everyone’s an expert on my psyche these days,” Skulduggery muttered. “I need a way into the Necromancers’ Temple. That’s all.”

“That’s _all?_ ”

“That’s all.”

Smithaz shivered. He didn't like Necromancers, as a rule. He'd made far too many enemies among them in the past. “You want a way into one of the vilest places on Earth, to associate with some of the vilest _people_ on Earth, and you think _armour’s_ goin' to help you with that?”

“If I walk in with a hood and a cloak, I’m someone who has something to hide, and hoods can be torn off. If I walk in wearing armour, I’m a powerful Necromancer, and armour is quite a bit sturdier. Wouldn't you agree?”

Smithaz was staring openly at Skulduggery now, doing away with all bother of trying to hide it. “Are you goin' to try and walk right into the Necromancers’ Temple by pretendin' to _be_ a Necromancer?”

“Why not? There’s only one person I need to speak to. I’m not planning on using the front entrance.”

“You couldn't, oh, I dunno, perhaps use a black hooded cloak? Like all the other Necromancers wear?”

“An excellent idea. I wonder why I never thought of that?”

It was sarcasm. It had to be sarcasm. It didn't sound sarcastic, but it had to be. Skulduggery always thought of everything. Smithaz waited for the skeleton to explain, and when he didn't, the blacksmith coughed nervously. “Well, I’m sure you know what you’re doin', but… how are you goin' to pretend to be a Necromancer?”

“That’s the point.” Skulduggery turned to leave. “I’m not going to have to.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m _dead,_ Smithaz.”

“Well, yes, I know _that,_ but –”

Smithaz froze. Skulduggery remained in the doorway for a few seconds longer, but when Smithaz didn't ask, he walked out, and the night swallowed him up.

The platinum, palladium, and silver sitting in front of Smithaz suddenly looked evil. They glinted ominously up at him, and he stared uncertainly back at them.

Was he really – no. But – no. Skulduggery meant something different. He had to mean something different. He and Smithaz were friends. He wasn’t really asking Smithaz to forge an object that was going to become a Necromantic tool, was he? Necromantic objects had to be made out of platinum or palladium - another reason the metals were so rare - or have either metal woven into them. So a cloak wouldn't do, and anything a non-Necromancer used would have to have a lot of those metals in it – and hell, no _wonder_ Skulduggery wanted his identity to be kept so secret, the number of people whose trust he would lose if they realised that by being dead, he could technically use _Necromancy_ – 

Smithaz looked over at the pile of unshaped platinum.

There was a lot he would do for half of that pile of unshaped platinum.

It wouldn't work, he tried to convince himself. It couldn't. Smithaz wasn’t a Necromancer. He just had a little bit of magical ability with metal. Well, okay, a _lot_ of magical ability, but even so. The things he forged weren't meant to be flooded with magic that wasn’t his. It wouldn't work. It couldn't work. He didn't even know what made Necromanctic objects Necromantic, for Chrissakes.

Maybe a real Necromancer could use the armour he forged for that. But Skulduggery wasn’t a real Necromancer.

Skulduggery was just pretending to be one.

Smithaz nodded firmly to himself. It wouldn't work. It couldn't work. He’d forge the armour, clear of conscience, and take half the platinum as payment. Whatever Skulduggery decided to do after that wasn’t his problem. If Skulduggery’s plan fell through and he was captured or tortured, that wasn’t Smithaz’s fault.

With a smile only slightly grim, Smithaz picked up his hammer.

~~

He delivered the armour, as was his usual modus operandi, right on time.

Skulduggery meant to put it on right away. The quicker he got this over with, the quicker he could be back out of the Temple and on his way to getting himself fixed; the idea of walking into a hive of the very magic he’d once tried to dissuade Solomon Wreath from physically repulsed him. He’d rather have it all done and over with as soon as possible – preferably within the space of a day.

But he hesitated before touching the armour.

It was coursing with magic that he could feel from where he was standing. Smithaz’s handiwork, of course. It was the same sort of magic Ghastly used in his suits, making them impenetrable and bulletproof. Skulduggery hadn't asked exactly what benefits this armour would offer him, but since he was only going to wear it the one time, he hadn't thought it necessary. 

Still, there was something about it. Something about the armour, about the way Skulduggery could almost feel his mind harden just by reaching his hand out towards it. Like the very air between his hand and the metal had hardened.

Nothing happened when he touched it. The armour was just armour, after all. Magical armour, but armour nonetheless. What was he expecting? A spark of electricity? An ominous roll of thunder?

Putting on a full set of armour was a task that took quite a bit longer than simply getting dressed. Normally an assistant was involved, but with Skulduggery’s ability to levitate objects in the air, he managed on his own. He barely even felt the weight of the metal, as it settled on top of his skeletal structure. As a skeleton, there wasn’t much he felt anymore.

The helmet, Skulduggery left alone. Instead, he faced the straw dummy in front of him and wondered how on earth Necromancy was supposed to work.

It was shadow magic, he knew that. Death magic, but shadows were the medium. Skulduggery looked at the shadow of the straw dummy, stretching out across the barn floor, and – with a conscious shrug – flicked it.

The air rippled in front of his palm, and the straw dummy exploded off its stand. Objectively, that was good. That was a solid and nicely controlled blast of air. That was what Skulduggery was used to. He tried again, doing his best to ignore the air, ignore how it was only a series of interlocking objects, and focus only on the shadow. Again, he only moved the air, and a few strands of straw blew across the wooden floorboards in the sudden breeze.

Anger surged within Skulduggery - just as it always had when things annoyed him - and before he could instinctively push it back with the smooth efficiency of practice, the shadow flickered.

Skulduggery looked at it.

Of course. Death magic. It fed off _him._ Not an object, not the armour. Him. He was dead, and yet full of energy, full of emotion, full of thought. And if his theory was right – if anger was what really did have him welded to the remains of his dead body – 

Skulduggery let the sound of his wife’s dying scream fill his head.

The shadow spiked on the floor, grew solid, and pierced the stand the straw dummy had been sitting on.

The anger vanished, replaced by surprise, and a sudden pain wracked its way through Skulduggery’s bones. He cried out and fell back against the wall, squeezing his metaphorical eyes shut, allowing the pain to flow so he could ride it out to the end without losing too much awareness of the world around him.

When it was over, Skulduggery glanced down at his left gauntlet, which he was fairly sure had been the general source of the pain. The silver metal had turned black.

Necromancy required an outlet. An object. There wasn’t a single Necromancer alive who didn't have to channel their magic through something metal and solid.

Skulduggery wasn’t alive. And he knew, with a strange and bolstering sort of certainty as the edge of the black gauntlet licked at the rest of his arm, that the armour was only retaining some memory of the Necromancy he used because he _wanted_ it to. 

Skulduggery was his own object. For a split second there, when the shadow spiked, such power had coursed through him without warning that he’d almost stumbled.

The horses in the stalls on Skulduggery’s left nickered nervously. 

The armour was even more perfect than he'd realised. For any Necromancer strong enough to wield it, it made the perfect defence and the perfect offence. Without thinking, Skulduggery whipped back towards the straw dummy and flicked his left hand towards the splintered stand.

His left gauntlet solidified, lengthened, and an arrow of shadow pierced the wooden wall of the barn. Skulduggery pulled his arm back, and like a magical harpoon, the lengthened shadow took the wall with it.

Half of the barn came crashing down.

The splinter of wood and the cracking of roof timbers mixed with the braying of the unfortunate horses whose stalls were on the wrong half of the barn, and Skulduggery let the braying continue because the way it annoyed him was filling him with hot, crackling energy. The resulting surge and rush of power caught him, carried him through, and there was really no way he could have stopped. Or wanted to stop. Within seconds, the other half of the barn had come down, and still he could do more. 

All the farm animals caught in the barn, he skewered with a single spear of shadow, shooting out from his left palm. Mercy killings, really. Those that weren't already dead were probably badly injured from the roof caving in. Their deaths sparked as tangible things in the air, and Skulduggery seized upon that. The energy it gave him, the raw power, made it possible for him to do even more, made him _want_ to do even more; in the pitch black of the surrounding night, Skulduggery turned towards the nearby woods and imagined them dying.

A wall of shadow came down on the treetops, controlled by nothing more than Skulduggery’s blackened and twisted gauntlets, blackening and twisting the foliage as the wall passed down through the ground. The entire forest was stripped of all life by the time Skulduggery dropped his hands and collapsed on the grass.

For a while, all he did was lie there.

It took a few minutes of dizziness, fog, and a slowly lightening haze on his mind for Skulduggery to realise that even though he didn't have lungs, he was panting. The power, the thrill, the exhilaration of becoming so obviously powerful within… what had that been, seconds? _Seconds._

Skulduggery levered himself up onto his elbows, and when he didn't hear an accompanying metallic clang, he glanced down.

His armour wasn’t just black anymore. Like shadows, they shifted, adapting to his body while he watched, before settling into something more solid again.

He'd forged the armour because he wanted a way into the Temple. Because he'd wanted answers. Because he'd thought there was something _wrong_ with him. There was nothing wrong with Skulduggery, not anymore. What he’d been doing, what he’d been fighting, _that_ was what was wrong. Skulduggery Pleasant died when Serpine pointed his red right hand at him. He wasn’t Skulduggery anymore. He didn't know what he was, but Skulduggery would never have been capable of _this._

Slowly, gingerly, the skeleton rose to his feet. A gentle stream of shadow helped him up, pushing on his back until he was upright. The grass bent under his feet, and he could feel it, even through the boots of the armour. Or were they even boots anymore? Shoes of shadow, shoes of pure Necromancy, feeding off the metal boots and the dead bones within them.

_“You want a way into one of the vilest places on Earth, to associate with some of the vilest people on Earth, and you think armour’s goin' to help you with that?”_

If Necromancers were some of the vilest people on Earth, then he was one of the vilest already.

He smiled. 

For the first time in a very long time, his inner expression matched his outer one. For the first time in a very long time, he felt free. The show of power, on the barn and the woods, was completely self-indulgent - both a rush and a release. Burdens he hadn't even known he was carrying were gone. The screams, the screams in his head – they’d stopped.

They’d stopped.

Necromancy was a means to understanding death. If he could understand death, could he bring back more than just those screams?

Vile didn't know. But he knew where he could find out, and he knew exactly who to ask.

~~

Tenebrae looked up, with an expression that could have withered a potted plant, at the excited Necromancer standing nervously in front of him. A brave man, this acolyte was not. Someone had put him up to this, and whoever that someone was, Tenebrae had a sneaking suspicion that they would be the ones ultimately punished. Or at least, they _would_ be, if Tenebrae was High Priest. He couldn't really speak for this current one.

“Did he even give his name?” Tenebrae asked. 

The Necromancer nodded. “That was the only thing he said. Lord Vile. I've never heard of him, but Tenebrae… he’s _powerful._ ”

“So I've heard.” Tenebrae nodded. He was already losing interest. “Everyone keeps saying that. No one seems able to explain how they know, if he hasn't said anything beyond his name.”

“It’s just… he radiates it. You’ll feel it when you see him. I can’t even tell where it’s all _coming_ from.” 

_That_ piqued Tenebrae’s interest – as it would the High Priest’s. No channeling object? That was unheard of. Maybe no one would be punished after all. “Do yourself a favour,” he murmured, “and start off with that, when you tell the High Priest about admitting a stranger into the Temple in the middle of a war.”

“I was planning to,” the Necromancer agreed. “No sword, no knife, nothing apart from this strange suit of armour. I suppose it could be the armour. It’s practically made of shadows.”

Tenebrae froze in the stone corridor, and something deep within him started to pulsate with a strange sort of excitement. He buried it; no sense in counting eggs before the chickens hatched, or before you even knew if you _had_ eggs. “Armour? Has anyone seen his face?”

“No. Not as far as I know. He’s got a helmet on.”

Tenebrae allowed some of the excitement to shine through, but kept no trace of it on his face. “Let me see if I understand this. A mysterious Necromancer no one’s ever heard of just appeared on our Temple’s doorstep. He is, by all accounts, exceedingly powerful, with no obvious means of channeling that power. He hasn't spoken more than two words, and no one’s seen his face?”

“Yep.” The Necromancer narrowed his eyes at Tenebrae. “What are you thinking?”

Tenebrae took a moment to savour the excitement before bottling it back up where it wouldn't affect his decisions. He didn't know for sure. He couldn't know for sure. But he’d find out, later this week, where Skulduggery Pleasant was. And then – then he would know. He smiled back at the other man. “I’m thinking, if we’re lucky, that we’re about to have our Death Bringer a lot sooner than any of our Sensitives have predicted.”


	4. A Reason to Exist

Vile sat impatient.

There were people around him. He knew that. One of them was saying something. He’d long since stopped listening. Not just since the man started talking half an hour ago, but since anybody in this Temple started saying anything months before.

The problem wasn’t so much what the man was saying – something about the glory of the Passage. It was more that Vile had to concentrate to hear anything. Everybody in this room felt like a mere shadow to him; insubstantial, faded, unimportant. _Living._ An endless sea of living, people who claimed to understand death and in reality were the furthest from it. It was irritating.

More and more these days, Vile was beginning to wonder why he’d ever come here. There was a reason, a while ago, but he couldn't remember it now. He’d seen these people as a source to learn from, to seek answers from. What a ridiculous idea that was. To truly understand death, you needed to _experience_ it. Maybe he’d been hoping for kinship within these dark stone walls. Kinship within this sea of vague and unformed existences he could barely see, let alone touch. But there was no kinship. There was nothing solid. Nothing to latch onto. Only a never-ending stream of explanations Vile hadn't asked for and didn't want.

Like right now.

He couldn't even tell how many people there were in the room.

It felt a little like he was drowning. Vile hadn't been in danger of drowning for over a century, but he remembered what it felt like. Isolated. Cut off from everything safe. Completely helpless as your most basic needs for survival were overridden, ignored, slowly shut down, slowly erasing everything you were.

That’s exactly what this felt like. Drowning in the living. Nothing solid nearby to rescue him. Anger flared, bright and hot against the stagnant room, and Vile seized on the chance to feed it with everything he could offer. It was something, at least. Something that staved off the drowning, and the bright heat never went out. It should have, long ago, because anger hot enough to burn so brightly could not be held by any one person for so long without killing them. Vile was already dead. Cold anger, on the other hand, could be held and nurtured forever. Held for long enough, and it stagnated even death.

Vile was sick of the stagnation. He let the heat flare, and reached out with his mind.

Whoever was sitting near him, only a few feet away – they shuddered, went still, and were suddenly solid.

_Now_ Vile could feel them. The existence, the life that pulsed, the energy, the magic. It all beat, and rotated slowly in that one spot. The sudden solid and tangible nature of that existence was surprising; Vile let his awareness retract back into himself with something very close to surprise. That existence came with it, leaving its owner behind, leaving the body to fall motionless to the floor. 

That body felt more solid and real than the man himself had while he was still using it. And the man’s existence, the man’s _death,_ filled Vile to the brim.

It gave him power. It gave him raw, pure power. He could feel it feeding his magic, feel its strength adding to his. His armour coiled in anticipation, shadows writhing impatiently down his arms. Vile was dimly aware of a sudden silence in the room, in the way one was dimly aware of gnats ceasing their endless whine. The fear in the room, already palpable, grew threefold. If Vile had been physically able to, he would have smiled. The bright heat burned somewhere deep inside him and suddenly, very suddenly, he understood.

He didn't have to drown again. He would never need to. He’d bring death wherever he went, and he would always have a solid foothold against the stagnation. People would learn to fear him. Fear would lead to fighting, to attacks, possibly to assassination attempts. Each of those would only make the flame burn brighter. And when the flame soared too high, death was, once again, a solid foothold. It was a cycle. A beautiful, natural cycle.

And these people – they wanted him to _save_ the world?

Vile idly wondered just how powerful he could become. With every death, with every murder, his strength would grow. His magic would grow. The flame flickered, and Vile sent his awareness careening out into the edges of the room.

With every person that expanding ring touched, the entire room grew more solid. He reveled in it, allowed his armour to expand and absorb all it could. And when there was nothing more to absorb, Vile called the ring back in, bringing every single existence within the room along with it.

Vile almost couldn't control that. It was _intoxicating._ A dozen or so people, suddenly dead, and the power fed everything – magic, strength, and flame alike. He stood up as all the bodies around him fell, drank in how beautifully tangible the whole room was now, nearly laughed at how much like drowning he’d felt just a few minutes ago. 

Something vague ran into the room, ruining the effect. Vile looked at the thing, and without any sort of voluntary control, his magic shot out. Shadows sharpened into spikes and skewered the figure where it stood. Upon death, Vile could tell the figure was a woman. He noted that absentmindedly, noted that these were people he was drinking the life force from, and the knowledge meant nothing to him.

More people. More vague things. Vile barely noticed them. He didn't have to; the moment he did, his magic took care of it. Killed them. Made them solid. Some ran, and that was laughably pathetic. Some tried to fight back, which was only marginally less so. Vile preferred it when they tried to fight back; it made him angry, and that ever-burning fury driving his own existence was what made all of this possible. It was what made him powerful. Made him strong. People kept coming at him, and not a single one of them was able to land even a single blow.

Vile killed them all without a second thought, and left the room. He strode down the empty hallway, armour and shadows ready and waiting, snapping at the air like loyal hounds. It couldn't have been more than thirty people he’d killed in that room. What would he be able to do with the power of a hundred deaths? Several hundred? Thousands? Millions? 

If Vile could kill every single person on this planet, how would he feel then?

The thought kept him walking purposefully out of the Temple. He’d found his answers, all right. And they didn't lie with the Necromancers. They lay with whoever’s goals aligned most clearly with his, and that answer was obvious. Mevolent. The man’s religious beliefs were wrong, but amusingly so, and in the grand scheme of things, it didn't matter. Mevolent was willing to do whatever it took to bring the Faceless Ones back. He believed the Faceless Ones would scourge the entire planet. If Mevolent had to do that himself, he would. And Vile would be there to help, just as so many of Mevolent’s other supporters.

Vile’s confident footsteps, making absolutely no noise against the stone of the corridor, faltered.

Serpine.

Even thinking of the man brightened the anger to a searing degree. Vile seized on that brightness, and his armour spiked angry shadows. They coiled and snapped, hesitating for only a moment, before the shadows at the other end of the corridor moved to mirror them.

Someone was there. Someone so insubstantial to Vile at this point he hadn't even noticed. _Wouldn't_ have noticed, if it weren't for the focusing anger his memories of Serpine provided.

He waved a hand through the air, and one of the Necromancer’s own shadows broke free of its master’s control and took that master’s head.

Serpine, Vile decided, wasn't going to be a problem. In fact, Vile would only be stronger with the Adept around him. The searing heat felt good. It felt strong. It made Vile stronger. All of that extra strength would disappear if Vile simply killed the man. Joining Mevolent’s forces was beginning to sound like an excellent idea.

Vile tiled his head towards the dead headless Necromancer as he passed. He stopped, and debated taking the time to try a little experiment. A group of Necromancers were approaching from ahead, he noticed with barely a minor movement in his frame – or in his armour. Yes, this was a perfect opportunity. Necromancers could reanimate dead flesh. Not with any finesse, or even a measure of subtly. But they could. It usually took hours, at the very least. With his head still cocked to one side, Vile narrowed his awareness and prodded the solid shell of the dead man with it.

It sat up.

It looked funny, without a head. Vile straightened up and took a single step towards the approaching group – five, maybe ten – and the reanimated body followed suit. Clumsily, of course, but that was to be expected. Clumsily and haphazardly, but it moved. It moved like it was alive, even though it didn't feel alive. It was perfect.

Vile sent it down the corridor first. It stumbled off, magic miraculously available to it, as evidenced by the shadows lengthening unnaturally behind it. Vile felt the group hesitate, felt the fear practically radiate down the hall, and then he felt them attack.

It was fascinating, how well the reanimated corpse stood up to their assault. It even managed to kill one of them. The power of that death faded without Vile being able to capture it for his own use, but that was alright. Like so many things, it only intensified the flame. Anything that intensified the flame was an acceptable substitute for true death.

They killed it, in the end, but Vile was already striding towards them. Two of them barely had time to lift their Necromantic weapons before his armour spiked out and stabbed them. No thought, no command, nothing but intent. Vile, in the meantime, tried to expand his awareness out to capture the full existences of the remaining Necromancers, but he needed time for that. Time and concentration. Neither of which he would ever have right in the heat of battle, so he’d simply have to improvise.

Blows couldn't land on him. It just wasn’t possible. His armour swelled into a shield with the mere thought of defending himself, rather than having to wait for a command to do so. His magic moved at the speed of thought. Nothing could get past that defence. In a way, it was almost boring.

Vile killed them off when it got too boring, and he left the Temple.

_Finally,_ he thought as he lifted into the air above the graveyard. _A reason to exist._


	5. The Last Thing

Lord Vile’s arrival could not have been more badly timed. Not that there was ever a _good_ time for an overpowered evil sorcerer to show up and join Mevolent’s side, but this timing was particularly terrible. The Dead Men should have had time to mourn Skulduggery’s death. 

Of course, they wouldn't have, even if they had the time. They'd all refused to believe Cassandra’s verdict, Descry included. The moment a potential lead came up on a living skeleton’s whereabouts, they were after it. Underground into caves lethal to sorcerers, into jungles alive with the rumours of the undead - once, out to a deserted island.

Descry went with them every time, but his mind was on something completely different. 

_‘Some sort of ruckus in the Temple… this could be the perfect chance to reenlist their help, if we offer ours in return. Would sending Descry be wise?’_

It was a thought Meritorious kept entertaining, and an idea he’d been toying with for weeks. If Descry hadn't been so busy tracking down those aforementioned leads with the rest of the Dead Men, he might have called Meritorious out on it. So when the rebellion's leader was the first one to bring it up, Descry was… startled. Not surprised, but definitely startled.

Meritorious blinked at Descry’s silence. “Don’t tell me you weren't expecting this.”

Descry managed a smile. “You've been beating around the bush so often, I was starting to wonder if you’d forgotten you assigned me to the Dead Men, and you were just talking to the spot on your right expecting me to be there.”

Meritorious laughed, and shook his head. “No. No, I’m simply torn. On the one hand, it might not be worth risking your abilities on. But on the other hand, the Necromancers will be tight-lipped, and no one else could learn more. What do you think?”

What _did_ Descry think?

The Dead Men would want him to accept this, of course, because it was obvious what the ‘ruckus’ was. Lord Vile. They’d been chasing down leads on Skulduggery because they _had_ leads, and no one wanted to believe the skeleton was really dead. Descry himself almost forgot Skulduggery was dead half the time, so strong were his friends’ internal disbelief. But if the opportunity came up to find out more about Skulduggery’s killer… 

That was why Descry hadn't been able to focus for the past couple of weeks. Stupidly dangerous for a mind-reader, now that he thought about it. It had occurred to Descry before how much he relied on the Dead Men, how often he took their protective presence for granted. Their thoughts were honest in a way he hadn't come across before, not even in Meritorious. Their opinions on things very often became Descry’s opinions on things – and the interesting thing was, he didn't mind. He defined himself by the Dead Men these days, and he was proud of that.

Feeling Skulduggery’s loss seven times over was the only crippling drawback.

The chance for revenge was an appealing one, and for once Descry didn't mind if that was a thought belonging to one of the other Dead Men or not. For all intents and purposes, he agreed with it. “I would like to go, sir.”

“You would _like_ to?”

“You need someone you can trust. And I promise, I won't announce my magic in the middle of the Temple.”

The lighthearted comment elicited a ripple of amusement in Meritorious’s thoughts, but Descry knew he still needed convincing. “The Temple is a stronghold, sir,” he added. “This sort of thing is exactly why you wanted my help in the first place. I’m the only one who could learn everything they’re hiding, and that’s a tactical advantage you can’t afford to waste. It might be the difference between having their help against Mevolent once again, and being shut out long after the war is over.” Without even a pause, he addressed Meritorious’s next concerns. “You don’t have to worry about me. You wouldn't have assigned me to the Dead Men if you were still concerned over my ability to keep a cover intact.”

Despite all Meritorious’s many thoughts, ringing so clear in Descry’s head, the rebellion’s leader smiled. “It is impossible to have an argument with you, you know that? It’s almost not fair if you answer all my counterpoints before I've even made them.”

“It’s what you trained me for, sir.”

Meritorious nodded, put a hand to his forehead, and started gently massaging his temples to fend off a growing headache.

That was one of the main differences, Descry realised with a start. Meritorious, well-meaning and noble though he was, never forgot that Descry could read his mind. His natural instinct, of course, was to edit his thoughts before he had them – which was impossible. It created a jarring disconnect. He trusted Descry absolutely, there was no question there; and as the very first person to do so, Descry still owed him absolutely everything. But he was a political leader in a raging war. Cautious and paranoid by nature, and almost overprotective of his assets. Dealing with Descry tired Meritorious out.

The Dead Men were different. Practically from the beginning, they accepted Descry as one of their own, and forgot about his abilities so extraordinarily frequently that it was possible to hold entire normal conversations with them. And when they _did_ remember, they just didn't care. Their words were near-consistently echoes of their thoughts to begin with.

With a heavy sigh, Meritorious looked back up at Descry. “If you get yourself killed on this mission, I’m holding you directly responsible.”

Had it been one of the Dead Men who said it, Descry would have laughed. They didn't mind when he laughed a few seconds early. Meritorious – although he claimed not to, and genuinely tried not to – did. So all Descry did was smile and nod. “I’ll do my best.”

“Corrival would have words for you too, I’m sure.”

“I’m sure he would.”

And Meritorious was worried about Descry’s ability to stay hidden? If he knew how much the mind-reader held back every day just to keep him comfortable, his head would be reeling.

~~

Descry knew all of the problems plaguing the Temple as soon as he walked into the cemetery. There wasn’t any physical evidence of it, but for Descry, there didn't have to be. The panicked thoughts of younger Necromancers weren't barred by the ground, or the locked door of the Temple. And when so many voices were terrified of the same thing, he really had to work hard _not_ to hear what they were terrified of.

Lord Vile.

Cassandra Pharos did say he would join Mevolent’s forces within the year. Whether he’d always planned to and was only now revealing his deception, or only just decided to do so, Descry didn't know. And he didn't particularly want to, either. He’d gotten close enough to read Mevolent’s mind _once_ , and as crippling as that experience had been, Mevolent was still fundamentally human. He still had motives. He didn't kill without reason, as unconscionable as those reasons were. From the sounds of things, Vile killed people because it was fun.

Descry didn't want to be anywhere near the mind of someone like that.

He stepped carefully around the tombstones in the cemetery, feet crunching on dead leaves and ironically lush green grass. He approached the mausoleum that served as the Temple’s front entrance, closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and knocked.

_‘Who is it now? Not someone I know… might not even be a sorcerer, but who else knocks on a mausoleum door in the middle of the night?’_

Descry knocked again, pointedly. After a little more internal debate, the single Necromancer on guard duty pulled open the door, which swung open on a very old and very unoiled hinge. “Who are you?”

“Descry Hopeless. Eachan Meritorious sent me.”

“Eachan Mer –“ The name hadn't even left the Necromancer’s mouth, and Descry could hear the ring of recognition in his thoughts. That was a strange feeling, being recognised. Descry didn't think he’d ever fully get used to it. “Wait. Hopeless? From the Dead Men?”

“That’s me.”

“What are you doing here?”

“Meritorious heard that something went wrong in the Temple a few nights ago. I’m here on his behalf, offering his assistance.”

The man’s panicked thoughts washed over Descry like a tidal wave. Vile. Death. Over fifty of the people he’d worked with every day, gone. Just like that. A pool of names, running constantly, grief-stricken and laced with fear. 

It was everything Descry needed to know. Lord Vile had appeared on the Temple’s doorstep several weeks ago, frighteningly powerful, dressed head to foot in armour made of shadows. Auron Tenebrae was in charge of setting up duels to test Lord Vile’s power, each and every single one of which ended in the other Necromancer’s death. _Death Bringer,_ Lord Vile was called. The Necromancers’ savior – until he stood up during a meeting and killed every Necromancer in the room.

Descry waited patiently while the doorman pondered over how much of that to reveal. Every moment spent not inside the Temple was a good moment for the mind-reader. Cults, in general, were seething mountains of lies. He nearly objected when the Necromancer finally made his decision.

“I’m not the one who makes decisions,” the Necromancer said. Descry's lips quirked into a smile. “Let… let me go get…” The High Priest was dead, anyone in a position to take over for High Priest had been evacuated, and the doorman himself – usually perfectly on top of things – had no idea who his direct superior might be. It was chaos inside the Temple. Eventually, he simply said the first name that came to mind. “Let me go get Wreath. I’ll be right back.”

Solomon Wreath. Descry hadn't met him before. He’d heard of him, however, and more information was offering itself up from the Necromancer’s thoughts before he turned away. Newly made Cleric, newly given privileged information. Solomon Wreath probably really was the highest-level Necromancer in the Temple right now. And if he’d been given newly privileged information, Meritorious would want to know that as well. 

A few minutes passed in near darkness before the door swung open again, and Solomon Wreath was standing there. “Descry Hopeless?”

Descry had followed the doorman’s descent into the Temple, his conversation with Wreath, and Wreath’s internal medley of confusion and fear before the door was opened. He already knew everything there was to know. He knew, above all else, exactly what the Necromancers’ Passage was supposed to entail, because Wreath had just been let in on the secret himself and he was still struggling with the morality of it.

“I haven’t changed my name in the past few minutes, no.” It was hard not to let his voice grow cold, and Descry was fairly sure he hadn't succeeded completely. But Wreath simply accepted it as the normal reaction to Necromancers, and didn't question it. 

“Oh, good.” A forced smile. “May I inquire as to how Meritorious knows there’s been trouble?”

Meritorious hadn't known the exact nature of the trouble, but there was no harm in letting Wreath believe Meritorious’s access to Necromancer knowledge went far deeper than it did. “Over fifty Necromancers dead? You really thought that wouldn't spread? Meritorious wants to know what happened, and he’s offering his full assistance in return.”

“Is he?” Wreath nodded. “That’s surprisingly generous of him, all things considered. He wouldn't be angling for anything else in the long run, would he?”

Wreath’s thoughts were wrapped in terror. It was almost worse than if he’d been outright lying, because he was trying to ignore his own fear. Or control it. And that, of course, only made it scream all the louder. It was all Descry could do to keep his face level. “I’ll be honest with you, Wreath. If his offer of assistance results in the Necromancer Order rejoining the war, so much the better. But he’ll offer his assistance regardless of what you decide to do. He can’t just ignore over fifty dead Necromancers. Who attacked you?”

Descry was retreating into what he could remember of Meritorious’s thought processes. Pretending he knew nothing of Wreath’s inner being, and performing the song and dance of _asking._ It really didn't matter what the Necromancer said from here on out. Wreath was struggling with whether to tell the truth or not, leaning towards a lie, and all the while terrified.

It was difficult to surprise Descry. Wreath managed it. “Would you mind coming inside for a moment? We can talk privately.”

He was disobeying his direct orders, taking a chance, and trusting Descry. Descry had never known a Necromancer to trust anyone before. “Of course,” he said with a nod, hiding his surprise. Wreath was, it seemed, a Necromancer in magic only. And a Cleric? It was going to take him a very long time to come to terms with killing three billion people, even if it was to save the rest of the world.

Descry followed Wreath silently into the Temple, closing his eyes against the sudden rush of thoughts whispering through the stone hallways. Panic, even days after the attack. Sheer panic.

_‘He wasn’t even touching… - I don’t get it, he was dead, how did Vile manage to… - couldn't break the shadows, they were too thick, it’s a miracle we escaped…’_

And the memories, the clear and constant memories of those who had escaped, haunted them so completely that Descry was almost certain more than once that they’d turn a corner and see Lord Vile there. It was a whole new stack of other peoples’ nightmares that would plague Descry for the rest of his life.

Wreath turned into an empty room close enough to the surface that Descry could still breathe, and he sent up a silent prayer of thanks for that. There were no armchairs, sofas, or anything remotely resembling comfort in the small room, which Wreath didn't mind – he walked straight to the centre and turned around, perfectly comfortable. Outwardly, at any rate. He didn't enjoy the lack of comfort any more than Descry did; he was tolerating it, for the moment. A lifetime’s practice worth of tolerance.

Descry, for his part, stayed near the door. He leaned up against the wall, folded his arms, and waited for Wreath to speak.

“He calls himself Lord Vile.”

This was good. The more Wreath told him, the more Meritorious wouldn't have to pretend not to know. “Lord Vile?”

“He’s a Necromancer. Just in case that wasn’t obvious. He appeared here a little over a month ago in a suit of armour, which, as far as I can tell, is his channeling object. He is powerful enough to –"

Something stalled him. Personal experience. Wreath had been one of the people Tenebrae forced to duel Lord Vile, and he’d experienced the power for himself. Descry frowned. That also made Wreath the only Necromancer to survive those duels, and the reason for that… Wreath was very heavily burying the reason for that. But whatever it was, he’d only just worked it out within the last day.

“Powerful enough to…?” Descry prompted him.

Wreath caught himself. “Powerful enough to kill over fifty Necromancers at once without raising a finger. That level of power would have made him one of our leaders.” He gave a sardonic laugh. “I suppose he wasn’t interested in that.”

What sorts of questions would Meritorious ask? “He’s gone, I take it?”

“Would I be here if he wasn’t?”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“A Necromancer’s power feeds off death, Hopeless. It’s possible to get… addicted. There’s a very good chance he’ll try and join Mevolent’s side. That’s all I can give you, I’m afraid. A warning.”

No. There was something more. Something so deeply hidden in Wreath’s mind that even Wreath wasn’t entirely sure of what it was, and it had nothing to do with the monstrous Passage. Descry searched for a way to draw it out without arousing suspicion, and then the obvious course presented itself.

Skulduggery.

He couldn't read Skulduggery's mind anymore, but he'd been able to once. A long time ago, before Skulduggery died. Descry had once been able to read all that the skeleton was, and he still knew very well how the skeleton would approach things. What he would say. How he would say it. What he would think. “The warning is much appreciated, but I need a little more information than that. What makes him able to kill fifty Necromancers at once without raising a finger?”

Wreath debated for only a moment. Lies came easily to men like him, but Wreath was... strange. It was an ongoing battle for him. “It’s an ability we've never seen before. I can’t describe it.”

That was a lie. Descry wasn’t sure _how_ it was a lie, but it was a lie. What would Skulduggery say? “I find it hard to believe that no other Necromancer in history was ever that powerful.”

“I don’t much care what you _believe._ It doesn't change that I can’t describe it.”

 _I can’t describe it._ That was the lie. Not that it was an unheard of ability; no, Wreath was exaggerating the lie, as many liars tended to do. Descry’s head tipped subconsciously to the side. Wreath didn't react, but inwardly, he recognised the motion – Skulduggery. And _that_ brought on a flood of memories and feelings Descry hadn't been expecting.

They knew each other. Skulduggery and Solomon, back before Solomon’s Surge. They’d been friends for a few brief years. Skulduggery had tried to draw Solomon away from Necromancy, and failed. After Solomon’s Surge, they’d lost touch. And when Solomon tried to teach Necromancy to Skulduggery’s daughter, their tenuous friendship had ended.

A small tilt of Descry’s head, and all those memories came flooding back? Wreath was feeling far more regret over the whole incident than he was willing to admit, even to himself. Descry made a mental note to tell Skulduggery that mending things with Solomon Wreath may not be as impossible as he probably thought.

But he needed to say something now, because Wreath was starting to notice the stretching silence. “No eyewitness accounts?”

“They’ll all tell you what I just have. Every Necromancer within a certain radius dropped down dead. No known causes. The best I can tell you is that Lord Vile willed them all dead, and they all died.”

The bubble from Cassandra’s vision. The circle that emanated from Vile, killing anyone it touched. Wreath had a similar memory, one he was trying his very best not to think about, but Descry had made that impossible. During Wreath’s duel with Lord Vile – the reason he survived – Vile had been sending that circle towards him, and Wreath, panicking, reacting on pure instinct, had managed to _deflect_ it.

A group of watching acolytes dropped dead in his stead. No known causes.

Wreath had power that, if known, would make him the next Death Bringer. Which, among other things, would mean that he would be expected to kill Lord Vile. No wonder he was keeping it secret. Descry certainly wasn’t going to ruin that for him.

In any case, he’d learned what Meritorious wanted to know. He’d learned what the Dead Men would want to know. There was really no reason to stay. “Thank you. Would you like Meritorious’s help rebuilding?”

Wreath managed a grim smile. “I gave you the warning purely as a courtesy. Lord Vile is a threat to everyone on this planet, Mevolent included. If Mevolent doesn't see that, it’s his problem to deal with, and good riddance. But Meritorious would do well to prepare for when Vile reappears. We don’t need or request any assistance from him, and we certainly don’t want any favours we’ll be expected to repay. We’re not rejoining the war. You can tell Meritorious that.”

Descry nodded. That was a direct order from Wreath’s superiors. He wasn’t going to be able to convince Wreath otherwise. “Alright. Thank you again for your help. Good luck.”

“You too. You’re going to need it.”

The intent was genuine enough. Descry left on that obvious dismissal, however, trying to think about what he’d learned the way Skulduggery might have thought about it. Lord Vile was easily capable of killing something already dead. Lord Vile was definitely going to join Mevolent’s side. Lord Vile was impossible to kill.

 _And,_ Descry remembered as he mulled over where Wreath might fit into this, _Skulduggery’s dead._

His gut gave a vicious twist. Descry’s attempts to imitate his mysterious thinking processes were all that was left of the skeleton sorcerer. Was his soul still bound, the way it had been the first time he was killed? Was he wandering, unable to move on? 

Would he mind too much if Descry said a prayer for him?

Just outside the cemetery gate, Descry sank onto his knees and took a beaded rosary out from under his sleeve. Prayers, he knew. He’d grown up on prayers. They were how he centered himself when he was adrift in a sea of minds. Maybe Skulduggery could be similarly helped by them.

He wasn’t going to tell Meritorious or the Dead Men about the Necromancers’ Passage. It wouldn't occur without a Death Bringer. There wasn’t an immediate threat, as long as Wreath’s secret didn't get out. And it wouldn't; Wreath had no intention of being a messiah. All talking about the Passage would do was steal attention away from Mevolent, and that… that was the absolute last thing this war needed.

The last thing Skulduggery would have wanted.

~~

Smithaz was usually a pretty sound sleeper.

So when he woke up in the middle of the night without any sign of a noise or a disturbance to wake him, the blacksmith was immediately tense.

He shot upright, went straight over to the window, and opened it. The night outside was crisp, a cool night breeze marking the moving of some trees near his wagon, and that was it. Nothing and nobody making any noise beyond what you’d expect in the woods at night.

But _something_ had to wake him up. 

Smithaz turned back to the small interior of his wagon, a makeshift bed taking up all the room not taken up by his forge or his oven or his anvil. He didn't even need to glance around to know that it was empty. Thieves, he immediately thought, or maybe highwaymen – but the wagons of blacksmiths weren't valuable. Sure, he had half a pile of platinum he still had to spend, but thieves and highwaymen weren't to know that.

Unless they were sorcerers.

Smithaz picked up his small but hefty hammer, just in case. His magic wasn’t combat-oriented. He _made_ magical weapons; he didn't use them. But he had all the strength and build of a smithy, and sorcerers regularly underestimated that. 

For a moment, nothing moved. Smithaz turned back to the window, but nothing moved outside either. He frowned, turned to go sit back on his bed, and came face to face with a moving shadow that had the glint of magical metal.

Smithaz brought his hammer up into the face of the moving shadow, expecting to hear a distinct metallic clang. He heard nothing. Something swallowed up the hammer, yanked it from his grip, and sent Smithaz tumbling backwards into the wall. He slid back upright and swung a punch, but whatever swallowed his hammer almost swallowed his fist as well. Smithaz jerked it back and stumbled up onto the bed to grab a shield he kept up on the wall, but the moonlight shining through the window cast the moving shadow into stark relief, and Smithaz froze with recognition.

“Skulduggery?”

It was his armour. That was his armour. That was the armour he made for Skulduggery months ago. “Good _God,_ man, you scared me half to death! Why couldn't you just knock?”

He slid off the bed with his knees shaking, and started fumbling around in his chest for the matches. “You needed that armour to get into the Necromancers’ Temple, didn't you? Good to see you weren't kidnapped or tortured. Did you find what you were lookin' for?”

Skulduggery didn't answer. Smithaz found the matches, struck one, and lit the candle he kept next to the bed. It lit up the tiny interior of his wagon like he’d lit a full-blown fire. He turned and saw that the armour he’d forged for his old friend was crawling with shifting black shadows. 

“Necromancy.” He stared at them, hardly daring to believe his eyes. “You really… you did it.” He looked up into the eye slits of the helmet. “You’re an ambidextrous sorcerer?”

Skulduggery hadn't moved since being recognised. In fact, now that Smithaz was thinking about it, Skulduggery hadn't moved at all. It was Smithaz that panicked and attacked him, and those shadows… they just absorbed whatever he threw at them. Skulduggery himself hadn't moved.

“Skulduggery?” Smithaz reached out to put a hand on the skeleton’s shoulder. “Are you alright?”

The shadows moved, suddenly and without warning, turning sharp and jagged. Smithaz jerked away and stumbled backwards, clutching his wrist, and when he looked down there was blood leaking between his fingers.

Not Skulduggery, then. Couldn't be Skulduggery. Skulduggery wasn’t a Necromancer.

He tightened his grip on his wrist, winced against the throbbing, and loosened his stance. “I made that armour for Skulduggery Pleasant.” He couldn't very well deny the fact now. “My magic shouldn't let anyone who isn't him wear it.” 

That was theoretical now, since he’d never tried his magic on a dead person before, and maybe Necromancy was immune to it either way. Maybe injecting the armour with Necromancy overrode Smithaz’s own power. The more you knew. “It _shouldn't_ , anyway, and I’m pretty powerful. Who are you?”

The figure didn't answer. But he didn't move, either. At least, not any more than the shifting shadows of the armour were.

_“Who are you?”_

One of the shifting shadows whipped out, and Smithaz dodged it. All of his weapons were behind the armour-clad man. His shield, up on top of his wardrobe – but that would leave him vulnerable. And would it even work? His shields never took Necromancy into account in the first place, and this – this was _powerful_ Necromancy. This was evil. Smithaz could feel it from here.

He made for one of the weapons anyway, because it was all he could think of to do. A wall of shadow reared up and blocked Smithaz’s path, and he tried to roll around it, but the top of the wall smashed down onto his head with the weight of an iron anvil. 

The world exploded in bright stars all around him. The ground disappeared from under Smithaz’s feet. He worked to clear his vision, to be able to think again, all the while wondering what kind of Necromancer would be able to find him in the middle of the woods at night and would _want_ to find him in the middle of the woods at night, and then the world tipped upwards and started hurting.

Smithaz was being pulled upright. Being lifted into the air. By shadows. They coiled around his waist and arms and neck, and everywhere they touched, his skin burned with ice. Once he had the wherewithal to struggle, Smithaz gripped one of them hard and tried to tear it away, but it became indistinct in his hand and he caught nothing but air.

Air his lungs weren't getting enough of.

The edges of Smithaz’s vision were turning dark again, and he fought it, fought it with every fibre of his being. He would _not_ die here, _not_ at the hands of a Necromancer, and _not_ a Necromancer using the armour _he_ made. Smithaz kicked and bucked and writhed in the air, but he may as well have been trying to defeat a nightmare. It was impossible to dislodge something that was ultimately intangible.

“You made this armour for me.”

Smithaz blinked his eyes open, tried to say something fiercely, and it came out as a fierce choke. It wasn’t Skulduggery’s voice. It was much darker, warped by the helmet. It wasn’t Skulduggery. It couldn't be.

“My name," it said in the manner of someone irritated, someone correcting a mistake, "is Lord Vile.”

Vile. Vilest of places, vilest of people. Shock swam slowly through Smithaz’s head. 

Something long and sharp pierced through his neck, and that shock was the last thing Smithaz ever felt.


	6. Battlefield Goddess

_This wasn’t part of the plan,_ some small part of Mistress Aoife insisted.

_There never_ was _a plan,_ Aoife shot back.

_Corrival said not to try anything stupid._

_What, like taking on Vile singlehandedly? Bite your tongue._

It was a very small part of Mistress Aoife that glared back at her, the smallest part of her mind that she still allowed herself to acknowledge. It was the part of her that she wrapped up in all her fear, all her doubts, all her uncertainty, and she ignored it on a fairly regular basis. It was a compromise, of sorts, with the less sure aspects of herself. She’d promised to continue to entertain and be annoyed by said aspects, so long as they shut up when she told them to shut up.

They weren't shutting up today. That was fine with Aoife. It was just one more small thing to fuel her admittedly reckless desire to end things once and for all.

She ducked around a group of sorcerers that had met in the middle of the battle for physical combat, aiming doggedly for the writhing mass of black shadows several metres off to her left. The noise, she knew, was deafening; Aoife didn't hear it. She never did. She never heard anything she didn't want to hear during a fight. It was almost peaceful, if one ignored the dying and the blood that soaked the grass beneath her feet; peaceful enough for Aoife to realise something, and for a sliver of doubt to make itself physical and drip down her spine.

Hopeless. If anyone was going to ruin her plan, he would.

_Stay back,_ she thought, loudly and firmly. _I can’t have distractions. If you have to send someone, send Ghastly._

Ghastly, of all the Dead Men, wouldn't hold her back. He was her son. She’d trained him. They knew each other’s tactics and fighting styles the way they knew each other’s faces. He wouldn't get in her way, and he might even be of some help.

Confident that the mind-reader among them was taken care of, Aoife focused all her thoughts on the battle ahead. She had no plans, no tactics, and no strategy. Strategy never seemed to work against Lord Vile, but going in without a plan was suicide. Ordinarily, she might have been able to take him in a straight fight without any fancy moves whatsoever. This wasn’t a straight fight. This was anything but. Vile had an army of resurrected drones to fight for him, and Aoife’s judgment was compromised by anger that burned so brightly it nearly blinded her.

Vile had taken one of her sons from her. Not related by blood, not even remotely. But one of her sons nonetheless. She’d already punished Serpine for it; this was the final straw.

A sorcerer Aoife vaguely recognised from the trenches rose up out of the surrounding haze and attacked her.

She spun to block, and delivered a blow of her own. It was as the sorcerer stumbled back that she realised why he’d attacked her; there was a gaping hole where his chest should have been. Skewered by shadows, and quite definitely dead. His eyes, when he looked back up, were empty. But he moved like he was still alive, quick and agile, and he still had magic – Aoife had to jump to the side to avoid the fireball he threw in her direction.

It was one of Vile’s drones. Aoife could fight Vile’s drones without her judgement being compromised. She could knock them out even with their relative inability to feel pain, and Aoife herself could feel absolutely no guilt doing so because they were dead. She could take away one of Vile’s most feared weapons. She was probably the only person who could.

With a growing smile and a new fire in her limbs, Mistress Aoife darted forward and attacked.

Deadened nerve endings were an annoyance, but not an obstacle. The human body reacted in very specific ways to certain stimuli. There was more than one way to stun someone, for example. Pain was the popular choice; blood loss and concussions worked just as well, if a little slower. Jabs to the stomach still made a body curl, uppercuts to the jaw still slammed a brain hard enough for a blackout. And of course, punches to the nose still folded into the brain, which was enough for instant death. In a living person, anyway. In these mockeries, it was only enough to give Aoife an uninterrupted moment to snap their necks.

Still, it worked the same way.

That first sorcerer, she finished off with a blackout. The second one, she stabbed with his own dagger and defended against until the blood loss made him fumble and collapse. It wasn’t until the fourth or fifth attacker that she managed an instant death – or redeath, perhaps? – twisting effortlessly through them until she could get behind one and wrap her hands around their throat. And after that… after that, she lost track of how many attackers there were. Twenty? Thirty? Maybe even forty.

She always imagined it as a dance, beautiful and deadly, with her multitude of partners completely oblivious to when they were meant to bow out and give someone else a turn. The thought made her grin wildly as she slashed through two more with the stolen dagger and whipped around to stun their deadened nerve endings with a particularly vicious kick.

Out of the corner of her eye, she caught sight of a living mage just behind her. One of Mevolent’s, judging by the way he was sneaking up. She was just plotting out the quickest course in her head to dealing with all three when another, more familiar figure washed up out of the brief memory at her. Aoife immediately forgot about the living mage and put enough force behind the dagger to drive it all the way through the first drone’s neck, effectively severing it from his body.

A startled and panicked yell behind Aoife told her that Ghastly was on top form, just like he always was.

She dealt with the second as quickly as the first, stuffed the dagger into her belt, and spun around in time to punch the panicking sorcerer with all the considerable momentum of her abrupt movement. Ghastly had set the sorcerer’s clothes on fire. That fact did him no favours when he sailed through the air and landed heavily in the middle of a fight a short distance away.

“What are you doing?” Ghastly demanded. There was real and tangible fear in his voice. Aoife turned her bright smile on her son.

“What does it look like I’m doing?”

She used to thank Ghastly for taking care of foes for her. She’d stopped doing that decades ago. Ghastly was a good man, but he had a tendency to heap just a little too much guilt on himself, and when Aoife noticed the look he’d wear when she praised him for a fight well fought she’d broken herself out of the habit.

Ghastly’s eyes were narrowed with the effort of fighting off a second attacking mage; otherwise they would have been on her, and they would have been wide with panic. _“Don’t.”_

Aoife laughed, and focused her attention on another of Vile’s drones. The panic was ludicrous when combined with the way Ghastly fought. It made a humourous image, his fear so palpable when he was landing hits on enemy mages and suffering absolutely no injury himself. Fighters like Ghastly Bespoke shouldn't have been capable of panic.

He sent his opponent to the ground and looked back. “Vile killed _Skulduggery.”_

Aoife shrugged, and sank her dagger into another one’s knee. Painful or no, it still made walking difficult. “So did Serpine.”

And she’d defeated him. Ghastly had been there. She would have killed Serpine, too, but Ghastly stopped her from doing that. Almost too good a man, he was. Even now, he didn't kill any of his living opponents – he only knocked them out or sent them running. It was in deference to him that Aoife currently only entertained attacks from sorcerers already dead.

“Serpine killed a living, breathing human,” Ghastly shot back. “Anyone can do that. Vile killed _Skulduggery.”_

He was really trying to talk her out of this. Aoife laughed again. She freely admitted that the most ridiculous things made her laugh when adrenaline was pumping through her system, especially since Ghastly did have a point. Vile had achieved something no other Necromancer had ever been able to. That should have given her pause, but in the middle of the fight, it only made her angrier.

She let her smile fade, enough so that Ghastly would know she was being perfectly serious. “The only thing Vile can do that I might be worried about is something he needs to concentrate to use.” She was referring, of course, to his infamous ability to kill hundreds of people at once, to simply stand still at the edge of a battle and within half a minute cause everyone in said battle to drop dead where they were standing. “And I don’t plan on giving him a moment of that.”

Ghastly looked unconvinced. Even in the midst of fending off various attacks, he still managed to convey that. Aoife’s smile faded completely and she sighed in annoyance while decking another attacking sorcerer before they even had the chance to try anything. “He’s a pest. _Someone_ has to take care of him. Now’s as good a time as any. Want to help?”

“Could we just consider, for a _moment,_ that you might die?”

Aoife blinked with surprise, then decided he must have been joking and laughed. “Where’s the fun in that?”

They’d never stopped to consider it before. You couldn't, in the middle of a war. You couldn't, or you would. Nothing good ever came from considering a possible imminent demise, and this time was no different. She'd taught Ghastly better than that.

The sky grew suddenly and unnaturally dark. Ghastly didn't seem to notice. Aoife did, and nothing but a pure unfettered instinct sent her cartwheeling backwards out of its way. She cleared the darkness’s radius with seconds to spare – seconds Ghastly didn't have, nor did any other sorcerer standing within it, whether friend or foe. Every single one fell heavily to the ground.

Aoife watched the light go out in Ghastly’s eyes before he dropped.

For the first time ever in her history of fighting, she froze.

She’d heard tales of deep shock dimming the entire world to a person’s senses. For Aoife, it was the exact opposite. Battle fervor, for her, dimmed the entire world to her senses, enabled her to focus and make snap decisions where others only flailed. This time, there was no dimming. This time, the full noise and smell and sight of war crashed over her head like a tidal wave, and it was all Aoife could do to stay on her feet.

Two sons. Two sons in the space of five years.

She looked up. Vile, standing in the equivalent to a small clearing in a forest, his intent and emotion hidden behind the metal mask. Barely more than a short sprint away. Around him, maybe a dozen drones left. Aoife ignored them and ran straight for the puppet master.

His shadows aimed to skewer her as easily as they had everyone else. Aoife’s speed, enhanced by her magic, saved her. She dodged and ducked and drew in as close as she could possibly get, realised a moment too late that she’d left her dagger behind in the chest of her last victim, and quickly changed her approach. Anyone could be killed. Vile himself had proven that. It was just a matter of finding a weak spot, and Vile had none with that blasted armour protecting him.

If she could get the mask off, she could snap his neck.

It was a feat easier imagined than done. The armour didn't seem to respond to any verbal command or even thought, so quick were the shadows’ defense against anything Aoife tried. It was as if the armour itself was a living entity, and the person inside it no more than a passenger. A funnel, through which the awesome power could manifest itself. She was caught and thrown back more than once, the pain worse every time. Aoife moved through it, rolled with the punches and slipped right back under the moment she had a chance. She was beginning to discern a pattern to the way Vile’s shadows worked – the attacks were worst if, like a rip tide on a beach, you let the sheer force of the shadows drive you out to sea. Fight them, stay in close, keep moving, take not a second to recover, and it was just possible to keep him on the defence. Not that Vile’s defence was any easier to crack, his protective barriers of shadow much more solid than they had any right to be.

Vile himself didn't even seem to tire. Any Necromancer Aoife knew would have fumbled by now, if only for half a second. Vile never gave her even that much of an advantage.

Too late, Aoife remembered the resurrected sorcerers she hadn't taken care of before Ghastly’s death. They didn't need to worry about being killed. One of them, a blonde woman, had gotten a hold of the dagger Aoife was using and Aoife only just managed to twist out of the way – right into an onslaught of shadows that sent her spinning into the air and crashing onto the ground too far away from the controlling Necromancer to be safe.

Not that Aoife would have been safe anyway. She couldn't get up for much too long, all action inhibited by the daze that swam through her head.

One blow shouldn't have put her into a daze.

A moment later, Aoife realised numbly that it hadn't.

Ever since she was a little girl, she’d been able to catch snippets of the future. She’d never wanted to, never cultivated the so-called ‘gift,’ never trained it. Over years of suffocating the magic with everything else imaginable, Aoife had finally reached a point where visions only came to her when she was caught in a moment of emotional weakness, rare enough for her that visions of the future had stopped being a problem altogether.

But she saw one now. That was what the daze was, the familiar and irritating ascent of her mind into a plane she wanted nothing to do with while her body was left helplessly behind in dire need of something to control it. Aoife struggled. It didn't work.

_“He felt guilty over letting us believe he was dead for five years.”_

_“No. He felt guilty because he was Lord Vile.”_

Someone physically recoiled. Betrayal, anger, and overwhelming hurt clouded them. _“You don’t know that. You_ don’t know that. _You can’t read his mind. Cassandra – what about Cassandra’s vision?”_

_“Cassandra saw Lord Vile where Skulduggery should have been. She interpreted the rest from there.”_

_“You don’t have any proof.”_

_“I have enough.”_

More was said, but it faded from understanding, and then surged back up. _“So you can just sit back and do nothing? You can justify it that way? You weren't even going to tell the rest of us?”_

_“Of course not. Or were you going to be the one to tell Ghastly?”_

The daze faded.

Aoife regained enough control of herself to be able to open her eyes, and even though she only had a couple of seconds to reorient herself before a spike of shadow burst out through her neck, it felt like an eternity. Certainly long enough to realise what the vision meant, to watch Lord Vile come into focus and feel nothing but ashes where hatred had burned so brightly before.

She’d made a mistake. She accepted that. She hadn't given Ghastly’s ability enough credit – he was probably recovering right that second. She’d let her hatred cloud her judgement and invited a vision in at the most inopportune moment in history.

But in that final moment, she didn't feel bitter, or hateful, or disappointed. She felt only hope. Vile was Skulduggery, yes, but Vile would disappear, and Skulduggery would come back. Ghastly would never discover the truth, never stop being friends with him. Without Lord Vile to contend with, the rebellion stood a real chance of winning.

Aoife’s only regret was that she wouldn't live long enough to see it.

She clung to that vision as her last dredges of hope fluttered, faded, and disappeared altogether.


	7. On Your Feet, And Don't Stop Moving

_“On your feet, and don’t stop moving.”_

The words rang in Ghastly’s head. They hadn't _stopped_ ringing in Ghastly’s head for the last two days. They’d long since stopped having any sort of meaning, or any sort of effect.

The flames licked the edge of the funeral pyre, climbing ever higher into the dark sky, spitting burning embers off into the grass. A wind had picked up. No one was standing too close. No one except for Ghastly. And even though he could have simply extinguished any ember that caught on his clothes, or protected himself from the wind, he did neither. Holes were being singed into the sleeves of his mortal-made jacket, and Ghastly couldn't bring himself to care.

 _“What the hell is she doing?” Erskine peeked out over the top of the trench with a wide-eyed look of astonishment on his face. “Corrival told us to wait. We’re flanking._ Lord Vile’s _over there. What the hell is she doing?”_

_Ghastly chanced a look, following Erskine’s gaze over to the raging battle in the middle of the field. His mother was dancing through the enemy mages, making short work of anyone who didn't immediately recognize her before making the mistake of engaging her. It was always a sight to behold, even for someone who grew up on her stories. With her brown hair tied back into a tight ponytail, her ability to make fighting look like a graceful dance, and her effortless athletics, she looked like a battlefield goddess._

“Ghastly?”

He hadn't heard anyone walk up. That was the only reason Ghastly started at the sudden voice. Otherwise, he didn't move, not even to turn his head and see who it was.

It didn't turn out to matter. The Dead Men all knew each other well enough that Ghastly could tell who it was just by the sound of their footsteps as they came to join him at the fire. Dexter.

Dexter put a hand on Ghastly’s shoulder. “Come on. You need to eat something.”

Ghastly shook his head. “Not until this is over.”

“Ghastly, it’s over. The fire’s dying down. Everyone else is back at the tent. She’s… she’s gone. That’s it.”

Ghastly frowned, and focused on the pyre. Dexter was right. Lost in thought as he was, Ghastly completely missed the general consensus of the crowd that the funeral was over. His arms were beginning to sear with pain; he rolled his sleeves up and stared blankly at the raw red burns in his skin.

He heard a sharp intake of breath. Whether it came from himself or Dexter, he didn't know. The burns sent jabbing pain all the way up his limbs, and those jabs only grew in intensity with the discovery of the injury. 

“Ghastly, you _idiot._ Come on, come get those looked at.”

“No. I told you, not until it’s over.”

“It’s – “

“It’s _not_ over until I can’t see any more red.”

Dexter paused, and then his grip on Ghastly’s shoulder tightened almost painfully. “Until there aren't any more flames, you mean? Or until you've stopped being angry because Lord Vile’s dead? Because I have to say, if it’s that last one, the rest of us are going to have to force-feed you on principle.”

Ghastly smiled grimly. “Did you draw the short stick?”

“No. I had to talk Descry down. He was about ready to come over here and knock you out. Apparently, it would be doing you a favour.”

They lapsed into silence, with the only noise for a few moments the spitting of the glowing embers. Ghastly had to stop himself from saying it _would_ be a favour, and a course of action he’d be perfectly all right with. The last thing he wanted to do was give the others more cause for concern. He wasn’t made of glass, for God’s sake. He wasn’t the only one in this whole damned war to lose people close to them.

Dexter’s hand on his shoulder grew gentle nonetheless, as if Dexter was the Dead Man who could read thoughts. “Ghastly, please. Come and eat something. You want to make Vile pay, fine. But you can’t do it on the strength of your anger alone. You’re not Skulduggery.”

Skulduggery.

Ghastly laughed. It was a bitterly broken laugh, even to his own ears. “We still don’t know what brought Skulduggery back. For all we know, it was Vile. For all we know, Skulduggery _was_ being controlled all those years.”

“Don’t say that.”

“Why not? You saw what Vile did. How the hell do you kill someone when death is… just a minor _inconvenience_ to them?”

 _“She_ does _know Vile’s over there, right?” Erskine asked quietly._

 _Ghastly didn't answer. He had no idea. His mother had defeated Serpine and Vengeous_ simultaneously _. Maybe she thought she’d be able to handle herself. Hell, maybe she could. No one would put it past her._

 _Descry appeared beside them, his face white. “Ghastly. She’s_ aiming _for Vile.”_

 _The world stopped. Ghastly’s heart leaped into his throat and beat there wildly. “She_ what?"

_“She’s going to take on Vile by herself. You’re right; she thinks she can handle herself. More than that, she thinks she can kill him. You have to stop her.”_

_He did. He had to stop her. You couldn't take Vile on with anything less than an army at your side, attacking as one, hoping that somebody got in a lucky shot. Ghastly glanced briefly back at Erskine._

_“We have your back,” Erskine promised. “Go._ Hurry.”

_He would have helped her, in the end. He wanted to. He didn't know whether that would have made any difference whatsoever, and he couldn't decide whether he wanted to believe it would have or not. He was about to give in to her enthusiasm and join her, confident Descry would bring the Dead Men running to help, when something knocked into him from above._

_He didn't know what it was. He couldn't tell. The world spun threateningly around him and started to grow black, but Ghastly fought it, struggling up out of the unconsciousness that threatened to take him. It slammed him into a world of pain, jolts ricocheting around his limbs and chest so intensely that Ghastly nearly failed. For a moment, he had to forget there was anything going on in the field beyond his own struggle. Pain was all in the mind; it could be controlled. And to control it, you had to learn to accept it. Accept it, ride it, move past it. Trying to hold pain away was fruitless, and accomplished nothing but making the pain worse. Roll with the punches, as Ghastly’s mother said. It was a whole lot worse if you didn't._

_He found out later that it was Vile. From a distance, just like with every other sorcerer within that radius, Vile had dropped solid shadows on him. Ghastly was one of the few it didn't immediately knock out or kill. He didn't know it at the time – at the time, he was just struggling to breathe._

_His mother was the only one able to dodge entirely. And she went straight for Vile._

_Ghastly saw her running past out of the corner of his eye, and he stupidly rolled over to get to his feet. The pain shifted, pressed down in different ways, and he cried out as he fell back down._

_The darkness swirled in. Ghastly had to fight harder to drive it away this time. His leg kept jerking, somewhere beneath him, which he was only aware of because it jerked at an awkward angle and brought a new flood of pain with it each time. He forced some air into his lungs – in, out, in, out, send the oxygen up to his brain, help steady him, help him think. Ghastly rose slowly to his hands and knees, taking the upward motion in agonisingly slow increments, trying to minimise the fresh onslaughts of pain._

_A hand on his back. He couldn't tell if it was friend or foe, and it was too dangerous to take the risk of assuming the positive. Ghastly flipped over, grabbed the hand, was all set to twist it back before the pain belatedly struck and sent him curling inwards again._

_“Ghastly.” Anton’s voice. Anton, with his Gist. Ghastly could not have been more grateful for it right at that moment. “It’s us. Where is she?”_

_Ghastly tried to point, but it was hard when he wasn’t even sure which way was up. He settled for waving a hand vaguely in the direction he’d last seen her. “Vile,” was all he could manage, but it was all Anton needed. The hand disappeared; Ghastly lay on his back and breathed, keeping his eyes closed, trying to regain his balance in the few precious moments he could spare._

_They weren't nearly long enough, but they practically never were. Ghastly struggled to his feet anyway. The world righted itself, slowly, and grew a little brighter. Sounds started coming back properly, losing their vague stillness and taking on a real tenor again. Ghastly’s head pounded, but he ignored it. He ignored the haze over his vision, too. There was a lot he could ignore in the next few moments._

_The sight of his mother attacking his friends was not one of them._

Ghastly’s memories of the entire fight were a little hazy, now. He had no idea how much time passed between the block of shadows crashing down, and his mother being killed. It felt like far too short. It probably _was_ too short. His throat was growing tight just thinking about it, so he fell silent, staring into the dying fire like it could provide him with some sort of answer.

He felt Dexter shift beside him. “We’re going to make him pay, Ghastly. You know that.”

Ghastly didn't say anything. He didn't say what he truly thought; that the only two people in the world he might have pegged for such a feat were dead. The only other person who might even get close was Mr. Bliss, and he was currently stuck in Africa, trying to verify whether his sister had really changed or not.

“Descry thinks your mother might have managed it.”

Ghastly’s finger twitched. He wasn’t sure why. “How?”

“If she kept doing what she was doing, taking out all those sorcerers he brought back first. But she didn't. She ran straight to him.”

“Because of me,” Ghastly realised with an unpleasant jolt.

Dexter nodded slowly. “I think… I think she thought you were dead.”

And that was probably exactly what Vile had been aiming for. Cloud your opponent’s judgment, and they stop being a threat. It worked on Skulduggery; and this time, it worked on her.

Dexter put his other hand on Ghastly’s other shoulder, gently turned him around, and steered him toward the tent. “She’s not going to want you to starve yourself, you idiot. And definitely not on her account. Come on. We saved you some chicken.”

Ghastly allowed himself to be steered. He wasn’t going to make the same mistake; he wasn’t going to let his judgment get clouded. And Dexter was right. He couldn't do anything on the strength of his anger alone. Food it was.

_He almost preferred the overwhelming pain of those solid shadows. What he felt now, sitting on the rain-drenched ground with his mother’s unmoving body cradled in his arms, pulled in a kind of numb after it that threatened to overtake Ghastly until there was nothing left._

_"On your feet, Bespoke,” came Corrival’s voice. A flicker of surprise ran through Ghastly’s consciousness, surprise that enough time had passed after Vile’s disappearance for someone to bring Corrival onto the battleground. He didn't respond. He didn't think he could, even if he wanted to._

_"The war's not over yet. You've made promises, and you're still under my command. You don't get to get out of keeping them just yet. And you damned well don't get to toss yourself to the dogs until I tell you to. So on your feet, Bespoke."_

_The Dead Men were all nearby. Not quite hovering, not quite aloof. Protective. Ghastly vaguely remembered launching himself towards Vile while the others were preoccupied with the puppet of his mother. Vaguely remembered Anton’s Gist joining the fight right when it was most needed, saving Ghastly’s life._

_All he could see now was his mother, lying dead in his arms._

_Corrival’s voice became gentler. "On your feet, Ghastly, and don't stop moving 'til it's over. Until we make the son of a bitch pay."_


	8. The Origin of the Grotesquery

Eliza Scorn.

The name didn't mean anything to him. Mevolent thought of her only as the lifelong friend of a traitor, and as such, a life he didn't place any value on. If the Faceless Ones required a sacrifice, she was to be the first one offered up. Those were Mevolent's instructions to Vile. Vile had stood and listened without a word, and any amusement he was still capable of feeling, he felt then. Only _one_ sacrifice? A devotee of the Faceless Ones Mevolent might have been, but even he didn't honestly believe this little escapade would yield anything. No one thought Vile could die, but Scorn could. And would, either way. Because in Mevolent's mind, either Vile would kill her out of some imagined frustration should they fail, or a Faceless One would if they succeeded.

Mevolent's only mistake was in assuming Lord Vile cared.

The plan was a simple one. Travel between alternate dimensions could only be accomplished by Dimensional Shunters, or Isthmus Anchors in conjunction with Teleporters. They had plenty of Teleporters, but no Isthmus Anchors. What they did have, much to Mevolent's barely restrained delight, was a powerful Dimensional Shunter and a powerful Sensitive, identical twins who were devoted to the Faceless Ones and had been working together on a theory for years. The theory went that, under certain ideal conditions they'd explained in elaborate detail while Vile was paying minimal attention, they could actually _create_ an Isthmus Anchor. Irksome, the Shunter, had identified a place on Earth where, for two minutes right at the stroke of midday once a millennium, the walls of reality were weak enough to penetrate. His name wasn't actually Irksome, but Vile didn't care enough about names to remember what it was. The Shunter irked him. That was all he knew.

Eliza Scorn and Baron Vengeous were coming along to oversee the proceedings. Lord Vile was coming along, as he often did, to kill a whole bunch of people. That was the part he was looking forward to.

"Why midday?" the Sensitive was asking.

"How should I know?" Irksome grumbled. "You're the one who foresaw it."

"Yes, but my visions don't come with explanations. No one told me _why_ midday. They just said midday. Isn't there something vaguely... _nonthreatening_ about that?"

"We're underground. We're not _meant_ to be threatening. We're meant to quietly kill people."

"I suppose the element of surprise does work in our favour," the Sensitive mused, tapping a finger against his chin. "No one expects an arcane mass murder ritual that brings about the end of the world to occur at _midday._ Everyone expects evil to be afraid of the sunlight. Which is, of course, why it would be vaguely nonthreatening in the first place."

_Irksome Two,_ Vile decided. He'd been considering a name for Irksome's brother. Why bother changing the classics?

"Would you both shut up, please?" Scorn asked deceptively pleasantly.

Irksome Two completely missed the note of danger in her voice. "Am I the only one of us who thinks there's something wrong with ushering in the Faceless Ones at high noon?"

"I think it's safe to say you're the only one who cares. Now _shut up."_

"Do you think I might have translated the vision wrong?"

Scorn stopped and whirled toward the man with her hand raised and glowing, but Vengeous caught her elbow before she could lash it forward. "We still need them," he told her coldly. "If anyone is to have the honour of killing him, it will be Lord Vile if they fail."

Irksome Two paled and fell silent. Scorn, after a full minute of glaring at the Sensitive, finally lowered her arm and continued their trek through the cavern without another word.

Mevolent had warned them that Irksome Two liked to talk. Something to do with needing to stay sane throughout the burden of his immense power. Vile was looking forward to testing that power, when he inevitably got the opportunity to kill the twins.

In the meantime, his gloved hand was shaking. It happened when he went for longer than a few weeks without using his little awareness expanding trick, absorbing someone's death. He could feel his power weakening. It was one of the two reasons he'd agreed to this fool's errand in the first place. The second was the chance, however slight, of this fool's errand actually _succeeding_ \- Lord Vile would be facing a Faceless One, possibly several, freshly powered up on the deaths of hundreds at once. He'd have the chance to test his abilities against a god.

Against a _race_ of gods.

When they arrived in the main cavern, Vile could feel it. Death, seeping in from above. Mevolent had lured a whole platoon of the rebellion onto the field they were standing directly under, and right at midday, Mevolent's forces were going to retreat. The soldiers of the rebellion would be left confused, possibly even congratulating each other on an abrupt and unexpected surrender, and within two minutes they would all be dead.

"Erm." Irksome Two looked back and forth between Vengeous and Vile with outright terror written all over his face. "I... _need_ to talk. Desperately. I'll gibber and go mad, otherwise. Can I talk about what we're about to do? Can I explain?"

Vengeous looked at him. "If you must."

Without so much as a word of acknowledgement, Irksome Two launched right into it, as if this was a speech he'd been planning for days. "As you all know, dimensional Shunters are virtually useless because of their inability to choose which dimension they end up in."

"Of _course_ ," Irksome sighed. "You start out with that."

"Don't interrupt me. It's true, and you know it."

"So your gypsy fortune-telling is more reliable than my abilities, is it?"

"I said _don't interrupt me._ " Irksome Two drew himself up to his full height with a confidence he'd lacked until that point, and a haughty demeanour he seemed to think was impressive. "But _since_ you mentioned it, yes, I _do_ happen to think that my abilities are much more useful than _yours._ "

Vengeous gave a warning grumble, deep in his throat, and the pair immediately shut up. But the silence lasted for all of two seconds before Irksome Two took a deep breath and continued. "So the plan is for the two of us to join consciousnesses, in that way only identical twins containing a _Sensitive_ can, and my brother is going to pick the right dimension with my help. Our consciousnesses become the Isthmus Anchor. And, in lieu of a Teleporter, we need a way to attract the Faceless Ones' attention - because with the walls of reality at their weakest here, a race of angry gods - " His voice grew quiet and reverential. " _Our_ gods, the Faceless Ones, they who tread where mortals fear to step... if they knew right where to storm, then that would be enough to tear open a portal."

"And _that_ ," said Scorn, "is where this entire plan hinges on _chance._ I don't like it, Baron. I really, really don't like it."

"Your job is not to like it," Baron Vengeous informed her. "Your job is to facilitate their success."

"And what better way to attract the Faceless Ones," Irksome Two went on as though no one had interrupted him at all, "than promises of death and carnage? That is, of course, where you come in, Lord... Lord Vile."

Vile didn't answer. Irksome Two paused, wringing his hands together in a suddenly nervous fashion, and looked at Vengeous. "Does he ever hear a word anyone says?"

"He is not a god," said Vengeous. "No matter how he likes to carry himself."

"Then why doesn't he ever answer?"

"Why should he? If he understands what he must do, why should he speak out loud to confirm it?"

"Because I'm putting my life and sanity on the line!" Irksome Two forgot his terror long enough to actually _yell._ It was completely inconsequential, but surprising enough that Vile tilted his head towards it. "The least he can do is acknowledge _that_!"

"And if he doesn't? Will you so easily give up?"

Irksome Two faltered. "Well... no..."

"Then stop complaining and start."

They did. Or at least, that's what Vile assumed the twins sitting down and facing each other meant. They started talking to each other in low voices, and Vengeous stepped over to join Vile, staring up at the roof of the cavern. "You do, of course, understand."

It was a question. It wasn't a question. Vengeous didn't like Vile, but he didn't let personal grievances get in the way of work. Vile didn't spare him so much as a glance. "Yes."

"Can you hear them? The Faceless Ones?"

"No. Once the cacophony up there ends, I might be able to. If they exist."

"They exist. Cacophony." Vengeous nodded. He liked to think he understood better than most. And, in a way, he did. "I'll let you know when it's time."

The walls of the surrounding cavern grew dim, the conversations of the living people with him muted. It all swam together in a haze. Vile's head tipped upwards, towards the death he could feel, people being gutted or shot or torn apart, and he allowed his armour to revel in it. Shadows spiked from his shoulders and helmet towards the cavern ceiling, anxious to join in the gutting, but Vile reeled them back. Minutes. Just a few minutes until he could unleash all this pent-up power, and more. Too early, and he would never know if he was a match for a god.

All the same, it was exceedingly difficult to ignore. It took all of Vile's self-control not to turn around and kill the people standing next to him. The shadows lengthened, outside of his control, growing up over the rock walls and drifting from his armour... 

... and just when he'd reached his breaking point, Vengeous tapped him.

Lord Vile let his awareness explode upward, through the craggy rocks of the cavern ceiling, up onto the battlefield. An icy calm flooded his skeletal frame. Shadows grew from his armour like streamers, the shadows that flickered on the cave walls from the light of the torches stretched up to join them, and the cavern grew pitch-black.

The lives of three hundred soldiers blinked in and out of view on the bloody grass above. Their confusion shone bright in the darkness. Some had already begun to celebrate a false victory. Others were mourning lost comrades. Vile absorbed it all, the uncertain cheers and the wary paranoia, and then he dragged it all back.

Above their heads, lifeless bodies began to fall.

Below their feet, the cavern floor began to rumble.

Vile frowned. Something was wrong. Something was wrong that had never gone wrong before. It was as if one of those lives was fighting, pushing back, pulling away - but it couldn't be. It didn't have a consciousness, it didn't have thought. It was just _life._ Life was meaningless. Life was there to absorb. Absorbing the lives of three hundred soldiers was a parlour trick, and yet one of them was _resisting._

No. Not resisting. It was colliding with memories Vile had long since buried, and something about the clash was making that one particular life force a bitter pill to swallow.

The Necromancer became aware of someone shouting. A hand gripping him. He followed where the hand pulled him without any initiative of his own, hundreds of different lives crowding into the space left by his own, filling him, strengthening the shadows that writhed all around him, slowing his perception of time down to a crawl.

_Skulduggery._

The flame roared and Vile lashed out, shadows ripping through whoever had gripped him. Those same shadows were plucked from his control and slammed right back into him, and he felt himself flying through the air.

_Skulduggery._

_My name_ , he told this resisting life force that encompassed all three hundred soldiers and yet somehow didn't, _is Lord Vile._

There was no answer. There was, instead, a memory. Vile fought it, hard, but it wasn't a physical attack he could defend against. It wasn't an attack at all. The memory didn't know or understand defences, and it slipped through the cracks of his anger like so much water in a stream.

_"Anton, will you marry me?"_

_"What?"_

_"You heard Corrival. No party unless we can find a reason. We're not going to win this battle. It isn't anyone's birthday or anniversary - I've asked. Ergo, someone has to get married."_

_"I shudder to think how your mind must work."_

_"My mind is fabulous, I'll have you know. So, how about it? Will you marry me?"_

_"No."_

_"Not even a little bit?"_

_"Not if you paid me, Larrikin."_

_"Fine. Dexter, will you marry me?"_

_"What, as your second choice? As a_ cast-off? _Not on your life."_

_"Pleeeeeease? I'm just as attracted to you as I am to Anton, I promise. I can provide a very handsome dowry."_

_"No. I've been insulted. You've insulted me, and I won't stand for it."_

_"Not even for the grand party we can have? The morale-boosting? Confusing the hell out of Mevolent's men? The years of happy bliss? The_ honeymoon?"

_"You drive a hard bargain, but I think I'm still going to have to say no."_

_"Fine then. Skulduggery, will you - "_

_"Oh, now this is just getting pathetic. If you're moving on to the living skeletons, then yes, Rover, I'll marry you."_

_"Really?"_

_"Really. But only if you pick out the colour for the drapes."_

The memory faded and Vile found himself face-down on the ground. The deaths he'd absorbed were at his back, bolstering him, and after a moment of alien shock Vile's awareness narrowed and the surrounding shadows returned him to his feet. He didn't know what the memory had been, and he didn't know what the resisting life force was. But he _did_ know what had turned his own magic back on him.

It was about to come through the portal. It _existed_. And he was going to kill it.

The fabric of existence shattered in front of him. It was right where Scorn had been standing when Vile last saw her, but Vengeous dragged her away from the licking ring of yellow fire and by the barest of chances she managed to avoid getting caught in the blast. If 'blast' was indeed the right word. Vile had no idea what might have happened to the woman if she hadn't moved, but it probably would have destroyed their meager portal. And this thing, this thing of skewed proportions and unimaginable darkness only now stepping through it, matched Mevolent's descriptions in one thing only.

Power.

Vile drank in all of the death from above and unleashed it on the Faceless One. He heard a cry of outrage from someone - probably Vengeous. His god was being attacked. There was nothing the Baron could do about it, and so Vile ignored his outrage as one of the many annoyances that peppered his life. He ignored it in favour of something much more important and much more worrying - shadows leaped at his command, the very darkness of the cavern responded to him, and the Faceless One was only now turning towards him with barely so much as a dent in its misshapen existence.

Vile made the mistake of meeting its metaphorical gaze, and his mind snapped in half.

~~

Images flashed. Noises sounded. Space convulsed around him. Sensations, nothing but sensations, for much too long to be safe. Sensations came broken and disconnected and it was impossible to process them, not without those necessary connections, not without knowing where they came from. Anger. Frustration. A change in air pressure. Power. Shadows. A scream. A gut-wrenching scream that - no. Not gut-wrenching. There weren't any guts.

Just armour, made of shadows.

It was the armour he used to figure out where his feet were, and by extension his legs. With only an unexpressed desire, something lifted him and settled him back down upright on top of those legs. That was really rather lucky. He didn't think he'd have been able to stand up otherwise.

The world didn't make sense. _He_ didn't make sense. The only thing that did was a vessel, a body, someone whom he'd called Irksome Two in life but who now no longer had a face, and so had to be dead. Dead, and possessed. By what he couldn't remember, but it was something twisted and something powerful and something he'd sorely wanted to kill.

Power crackled at his fingertips. He still could.

The faceless Sensitive stood and regarded him curiously. He stared right back. He was an anomaly. Something that should be dead, and wasn't. He didn't know how he knew that, but he knew that being surrounded by death and shadows was enough to give even a powerful nameless being pause. He seized every single opportunity offered by that pause, gathered his many fractured thoughts together, narrowed his focus, and concentrated. He made his awareness tangible, and when it was powerful enough, he let it expand.

When it caught the faceless Sensitive, he didn't let it go any further.

_There_ was a death he wanted to absorb. It reverberated through the world. It was evil incarnate. It was _intoxicating._ It pulsed in the air, rotating slowly, an impossible energy of massive proportions all wrapped up and stuffed into a tiny human body, and that was really its downfall. That original form, he wouldn't have stood a chance against. But this vessel?

He became dimly aware that some part of him was fighting a very brutal battle to _keep_ the massive energy suspended. With a startled noise, he withdrew his awareness, and it took the massive energy with it, and it all coalesced into his armour and made him throw back his head and _scream._

Too much. _Far_ too much. The armour wasn't designed for it. The human mind couldn't stand it. The vessel keeled over, empty, and it was the only article anywhere on the planet that could even _hope_ to contain such raw energy. He kept it until he was sure it was dead - screaming all the while, collapsing on the ground, the air sparking above him and shadows writhing without purpose - and then he released it back into that ruined vessel it had called a body for less than a minute.

The vessel didn't rise. It was dead.

With the vessel's consciousness gone, the portal was closed. Stupid choice for a vessel, really. Now none of its brethren could follow it.

"Lord Vile, I _command_ you to answer!"

He turned. Baron Vengeous, of course, demanding to know what had happened. He'd learn, soon enough. He'd learn that his precious god was dead, that the portal couldn't be reopened past midday, and that Mevolent's scheme had failed.

Vile wouldn't be there.

Shadows drifted in the air of the cavern, feeding off the energy of three hundred dead soldiers. He looked at those shadows next, ignoring Vengeous's questions. They were unnatural. They were _wrong._ He released those deaths, each and every one of them, acting on an instinctual power he'd never bothered to look for before, and above his head three hundred bodies sat up.

It left him drained. It left him with nothing more than the power of the shadows inside his armour. There was very little he could do with them, but he could still shadow-walk further than any Necromancer alive. 

And so, to the sound of Vengeous's hurled accusations, he did.


	9. Up

He didn't even make it out of the cavern.

It wasn't for lack of trying. He shadow-walked four or five times, deeper and deeper into the caves, before his magic gave out and he collapsed. The air that far down was absolutely still, and in the silence he found that the armour did, in fact, clank. It was just a barely noticeable clank. A muffled clank, smoothed by shadows, as though even the armour was trying to deny what it really was.

He'd never released deaths before. He should have realised there would probably be consequences.

The stillness made it easy to think, but thinking hurt too much. Having a coherent thought was like trying to drag himself over shards of glass. His mind was broken, snapped in half by that faceless Sensitive - no, by the thing inside it, by what it was _before_ it was the faceless Sensitive - _ow._ All right. Backtrack. Stop thinking. Start feeling. There was a flame, somewhere, and if he let himself feel then that flame burned, and the warmth was a comfort. The warmth helped stave off the frigidity of apathy.

First things first. Before that thing arrived, what happened?

He'd been looking forward to it. He'd wanted to kill it. Why?

He didn't know. He should probably start, he realised, by establishing some sort of personal identity. Not even a name. Just a sense of self. Something to help center him.

_""My mind is fabulous, I'll have you know. So, how about it? Will you marry me?"_

_"No."_

_"Not even a little bit?"_

_"Not if you paid me, Larrikin."_

It didn't require any thinking to know where that memory came from. Hopeless. Who else could possibly have _resisted?_ Who else could be all three hundred soldiers at once? The problem wasn't identifying where the memory came from, it was figuring out what this so-called 'Hopeless' was. Or what Hopeless wanted him to have the memory for.

_Ow._ More shards of glass. Perhaps if he started from the beginning.

He killed three hundred people.

... That seemed to be the most he could handle.

No. No, it would _not_ be the most he could handle. He dragged himself into the memory by force, dragged himself over the field of broken glass, and searched. If he concentrated hard enough, right in the middle, he could pick apart each and every life he'd absorbed. And yes, there was Hopeless. All three hundred lives at once. There was also a life bursting so full of energy that it absorbed the energies of some and repelled the energies of others - Larrikin. One of the energies it absorbed was easily steadfast enough to remain its own, carrying a flame very similar to the one he carried. Vex - or Ravel. More likely Ravel. They were the only three familiar lives.

And he'd almost taken them.

With panic, he wondered if Hopeless would remember. That, he assumed, made Hopeless a person. And no, Hopeless wouldn't remember, because no consciousness came with the lives he absorbed. Memories weren't created. Weren't stored. The panic accepted that, after a time, and faded.

No one knew who he was, or where he was. A certain kind of relief came with that knowledge, canceling out the pain of broken shards of glass that cut his thoughts off and killed them in their inception. He could lie here for all of time, if he wanted to, and no one would ever be any the wiser. No one would come looking. No one would care. It was freeing in a way that even the Necromancy hadn't been.

_Necromancy._ He sat bolt upright. With some effort, he ignored the pain, ignored the thoughts, seized on the sudden fear that drowned everything else out and ripped off his helmet. The rest of the shadow armour released it with a reluctant sigh. For the first time in five years, there was a break in the magic that surrounded it, and that was a momentary weakness he took full advantage of. Because it made thinking easier, and much less painful. Because it got rid of the jarring disconnect that the armour provided, in terms of personal identity. He pulled each piece off, let the shadows drift together into a tangible knot that he could hold in his hand, and then thrust his hand out. The knot of shadows shot to the edge of the tunnel wall and exploded against the rock, only to fall back down into their original large pieces of shadow-possessed metal.

If he wasn't very much mistaken, the armour - even that far away - was calling out to him.

That, he could have handled. Punishment, he supposed. No more than he deserved. What he couldn't handle, what made the bones of his hands shake seemingly of their own accord, was that he could very easily give in to that call and he wouldn't even need to walk over. The armour would come to him. It would cloud his thoughts and his judgement again, and it would kill again.

_He_

would kill again.

It was difficult to comprehend that. He spent all of a second trying to count off how many people he'd actually killed these last five years, and then decided he needed to be much more mentally stable before he could let himself fall into that deep pit - if he ever did. If he was even capable of becoming mentally stable again.

_"Fine then. Skulduggery, will you - "_

_"Oh, now this is just getting pathetic. If you're moving on to the living skeletons, then yes, Rover, I'll marry you."_

_"Really?"_

_"Really. But only if you pick out the colour for the drapes."_

The words circled around in his head the way the dying screams of his family used to. The family he'd forgotten. The family he would, for as long as he lived, never forget again. But they were dead, and others were not, and the others were the important thing.

And Faceless Ones. They actually did exist.

How about that.

He got, very slowly, to his feet, and walked over to where the various pieces of his armour lay. He gathered them up, carried them over into the middle of the tunnel where the cave opened up into an alcove, and put them down in their proper order on the rough stone ground.

Then he took a very deliberate step backwards, proving to himself that he could ignore the call, _would_ ignore the call, and turned away.

The next step was probably to kill himself. But he had no idea how to do that, and no inclination to try. He took the armour off because it was in his way, in the way of thinking and in the way of centering. Now that he'd taken it off, what options were left to him?

Maybe the Faceless One had driven him permanently insane.

Maybe he was still too close to the armour.

The last option made more sense, and so he walked up the tunnel until it came to a fork. Then he picked a direction at random. Then, later on, another direction at random. And so on, until he'd left the armour far behind, lost all track of time, and realised that his path was taking him, very slowly, up.


	10. Golden Potatoes

It was a nice day.

James had risen with the sun, as he usually did, and decided to forego breakfast in favour of walking through the crop fields, imagining what it would all look like come the end of the summer. Fields of green, covering the rocky soil as far as the eye could see, every single set of bright green leaves hiding a large ripe potato beneath the ground.

That wasn’t exactly what it would look like. James knew that, even now. Less than half of the potatoes would make it to harvest, and those that did would be far from what they should be. He’d take them to the harbour to sell, and no one would want them, and he’d return home with most of his stock still _in_ stock. And not enough money to keep him comfortable through the winter.

That was all right. That was what had happened the last three winters, and he’d managed to survive. That was what he was. A survivor.

In the light of the spring sun, it was easy to forget there would be any hardship at all. It was easy to imagine this year would be just as fruitful as it was a decade ago. And James had promised himself, on the way up the ridge beside his fields, that he wasn’t going to dwell on anything negative this morning. It was just too nice a morning for negative things. This morning was a morning for walks in the woods. This morning was a morning for clearing the mind.

This morning was a morning for discovering skeletons.

James hadn't moved for the last few minutes, up on top of the ridge, staring at the bleached bones that looked…. well, an awful lot like someone had just dropped dead where they were standing, and their flesh had all rotted away right there. The bones weren't faded, or yellowed, or lying in a pile. They were still attached to each other in a perfect representation of a human skeleton. Or at least, what James considered to be a perfect representation. He’d never seen a human skeleton before. Rabbit skeletons, sure. Small rodents. Never a human.

This wasn’t right. This couldn't be right. No one had died on the farm in the last year, not without James knowing. And… it took longer for flesh to rot, didn’t it? To leave the bones this _clean?_

James hadn’t moved for the last few minutes, and he still wasn’t quite sure why.

Fear? No. Not really. Curiosity? Maybe. No, it was really just indecision. Touching the bones of a human skeleton randomly discovered on someone’s land did not sound like a good idea. James wasn’t the type of person to believe in curses, but he also knew there was a lot more in the world than he could hope to understand. And he didn’t want to understand it. He didn’t particularly want to take the risk.

But he could also use them. Bones in mint condition like this? It shouldn’t matter whether they were rabbit bones or human bones, they could come in very useful. 

Decision made, James knelt down and reached out to take the leg bone. The lower right leg, the one closest to him. His hand stopped right before his finger could brush the stark white, and for a long moment, James just watched it.

When it didn’t do anything, he reached out and poked it.

Nothing happened.

Right then. No curse. No silly curse. Just a stack of useful bones rather conveniently left, and James mentally shook himself before he took hold of the bone and gave it a yank to pull it from the knee.

The entire skeleton jerked. That might not have been so strange, except that James was sure he heard a sharp yell at just about the exact same time.

He reeled back with his own startled cry, tripped over his own feet, nearly fell over the edge of the ridge, scrabbled for a handhold, and then just lay for a few moments trying to get his breath back.

The skeleton didn’t move.

Of course it didn’t move. It was a bloody _skeleton._

Once James was breathing normally again, he slowly rose to his hands and knees and crawled back towards it. He poked the leg bone again. Nothing. He gripped it. Still nothing. He tried to work up the courage to yank it again, but he couldn't quite manage that.

So, with a deep breath, James leaned closer and started trying to work the bone free as gently as he could. Like the skeleton was a living person who could feel pain. He felt ridiculous even thinking that, or treating the bone so gently, but his heart was still hammering hard in his chest and that was hard to ignore.

The bone wouldn't pull free. James frowned, and tugged harder. It still didn’t come out. Like there was something keeping it there, holding it in the socket of the knee. Was that normal? That wasn’t normal. James ended up bracing himself against the ground next to the skeleton, both hands on the leg bone, and pulling with slowly increasing strength each time. 

This wasn’t working. James gritted his teeth together, stood up, and laid all of his weight into the pull. Three seconds, and then finally - _finally_ \- it popped free.

A roar of pain, this time, and the skeleton didn’t just jerk - it sat up. _Shot_ up. Into a sitting position. Like a person. Like a human.

James dropped the leg bone and leaped back. “Sorry! Sorry! I didn’t know that – I didn’t –”

He stuttered to a halt as his brain finally caught up with his mouth.

The skull of the skeleton turned to look at him. James tried to force himself to do something, anything, even raise his hands in surrender. Maybe beg for his life. Travel back in time and try the last few minutes again.

“I just…” His voice was thin and reedy. He was mildly surprised it was even there. “I needed the bone, I didn’t think that – you – would need it, or… what are you?”

The skeleton didn’t answer. Could skeletons talk? James laughed, sudden and loud and desperate-sounding, probably because he was starting to grow very desperate. “Skeletons can’t talk, can they?”

_Skeletons can’t talk, can they?_ He’d fallen off the ridge. Fallen off the ridge and hit his head.

Either way, the answer was apparently ‘no.’ The skeleton continued not to talk. It just stared at him. Big, empty eye sockets in the middle of that skull, turned towards James, looking even more intimidating for the fact that they were situated on top of a permanent grin.

When James eventually spoke again, his voice had grown so small even he could barely hear it. “Are you going to kill me?”

There was a sudden breeze through the trees above them, which James was grateful for, because it worked to break the stifling silence between them. Nothing else did. There was nothing else to break the dawning realisation in James’s mind that he wasn’t unconscious, that all of this was very real, and that he was about to die at the hands of some kind of skeleton curse.

The jaw of the skull opened slightly. “No.”

All James was physically capable of doing at that moment was blinking. “Oh.”

No. Wait. Look at that. He managed a word.

All the strength left James’s legs, and he sank bonelessly to the ground. “Oh,” he repeated, staring at the leg bone lying on the ground. “Alright.”

_What,_ he wondered, _the hell am I supposed to do now?_

The skeleton had a voice. And it was a smooth voice. It was hard to tell from one word, of course – or at least, it should have been. But James could tell a lot from it. Smooth voice. A voice that was seriously considering his question, because there wasn’t even a hint of amusement. Genuine tone, though. He’d _meant_ that word. Without even thinking about it, James believed him.

“Where am I?”

James started. In retrospect, he was actually a lot happier the skeleton kept talking, because James sure as hell wasn’t going to. But in the heat of the moment, he suddenly very much wanted the silence again. “Cork,” he rattled off instinctively. “About a day’s travel from the city.”

“Ireland?”

“I…. yeah. Yeah, Ireland.” James paused. “Do you need the date?”

“Why would I need that?”

The words were careful. Measured. Not quite like someone getting used to their own voice, which would have been James’s first guess, but more like someone who was being very careful with how their words might be taken. Like someone trying not to offend. Like someone trying to be polite.

A _polite_ living skeleton. 

“I don’t know.” James managed to be just as careful with his own words, and avoided stuttering again. “I just thought… I don’t know.”

Silence again.

“What the hell happened to you?”

It was James’s voice. That surprised him. It even sounded halfway coherent, which also surprised him. It seemed to surprise the skeleton, too. Its skull tilted slightly to the side, at least. “Excuse me?”

James stared. “You’re a _skeleton._ What happened?”

“I died.”

_Oh, really._ James felt the welcoming sensation of an emotion other than shock flooding him. “I’d never have guessed that.”

The skeleton shifted, and James watched in open awe as it slowly reached over to pick up the fallen leg bone. No, not it – him. His voice, when he spoke, was definitely male. He threaded the bone back into the knee socket, twisted it back into place with another sharp yelp, and then gingerly got to his feet. Bones. Feet bones.

He almost instantly keeled back onto the ground.

James didn’t think, didn’t plan; just reacted. He darted forward and caught the skeleton right before he collapsed, hauling him back to his feet. It was easier than he expected. Then again, he was a skeleton – of course he would be light. No more than 15 kilos. James could carry the bloke, if he needed to.

“I guess you can get tired, too.” James pulled the skeleton’s arm around his shoulders and started walking back down the ridge, easily supporting the skeleton on the way. “My house isn't far. Five minute walk, if we take our time. Can you hang on that long?”

Twigs crunched underfoot for a few seconds before the skeleton answered. “Yes. Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it.”

_Really,_ James silently added. _Don’t mention it. I’m supporting a living skeleton back to my farmhouse. If I think any harder about this, I’m going to go mad._

“I’m a sorcerer.”

James stumbled a bit under the light weight. “What?”

“That’s how I died. I’m a sorcerer. Another sorcerer killed me.” A pause. “Magic tends to complicate even the simple things.”

For the third time that day, all James could manage was “Oh.”

“You asked. You’re helping me where you don’t have to. You deserve to know.” The skeleton hesitated, skull tilted down to watch his own steps, and his shoulder blades rose and fell in what James could only assume was a shrug. “I’m sorry. I’m a bit rusty at conversation.”

“Can’t imagine why.” How long had it been since the skeleton came across anyone who didn’t immediately run at the sight of him? James might have done the same thing, if turning around and running wouldn’t have pitched him over the edge of the ridge.

“I need clothes.”

James stopped entirely and turned to stare at the skeleton all over again. “Clothes?”

“Mine burned away.”

Of course. Of course they did. Of course polite living skeletons wore clothes. James really had to start keeping up here. “I… might have something, sure.”

“Thank you.”

They had reached the bottom of the ridge before James realised something else. “I’m James, by the way. James Walsh.”

For a long time, the skeleton didn’t respond. James was beginning to suspect he wouldn't, by the time his house came back into view. It turned out, he wasn’t exactly wrong. All he got was one word.

“Alright.”

All right. James nodded to himself. He could live with that.

~~

Skeletons didn’t drink tea.

Looking back now, that should have been obvious.

There was a lot skeletons didn’t do. They didn’t sleep. They didn’t drink. They didn’t eat. That was probably a good thing, because James didn’t have much in the way of food to offer. Or, apparently, in the way of clothes. He managed to put together a makeshift robe of some sort, made mostly of leftover sack material, and that worked. The skeleton accepted it, anyway, without a word. It was impossible to tell how he felt about it. After a moment’s consideration, James decided to take the skull’s grin at face value.

“Where did you come from?” he asked once he had his own chipped mug of tea to work on. “How did you end up here? Not many people come this way at all, let alone…” _Let alone skeletons._

“I was… hoping to find somewhere completely uninhabited, actually.”

“Why?”

“I wasn’t sure how I was going to react.”

“To what?” James asked. “To people?” The memory of the skeleton’s completely serious response to his question about killing suddenly resurfaced, and James almost dropped his tea. “Oh. Ah. Right, never mind. Glad that went well.”

“You’re odd.”

“I talk a lot.” James sank into one of the table chairs to minimise the risk of actually dropping his tea. “I just don’t have a lot of people to talk to.”

“No, not that.” The skeleton’s head tilted to the side. “You’ve seen and experienced more in one morning than most people do in a lifetime. You’re adjusting remarkably well.”

James had absolutely no idea what to say to that. The last thing he felt like doing was _adjusting_. He didn’t feel like he was doing anything remarkably well. He was just about not dropping his tea, and even _that_ was an achievement. “Thanks,” he murmured into his tea, taking a sip nearly at the same time. “So do you have a name, or what? It’s just… I can’t keep thinking of you as ‘the skeleton.’"

When the skeleton, once again, didn’t respond for minutes on end, James ducked his head back towards the mug. “Never mind.”

“No.” The word was as quick as it was surprising. “I’m sorry. It’s just that I have three at the moment.”

_“Three?”_ James stared. “You mean first, last, middle?”

“I mean three names. One hasn't been used in over two hundred years. One… isn’t mine, anymore. The last never was.”

Finally, James had to ask – he couldn’t not. “Are you a curse?”

“What?”

“A curse. A myth. There’s a lot of them up here. They usually have multiple names. Did I do something wrong? Did I trigger a curse?”

“A curse?”

There. _There._ Amusement. A note of amusement. It blended very nicely with the skeleton’s smooth voice. It was also the first time James had heard the skeleton find anything funny. “Yeah. A curse. I don’t know anything about them, but… well, I’m not dead yet, so this one’s going well.”

The skull tilted a little further. “I’m not a curse. You and I meeting is a pure coincidence.”

“Oh, good.”

“As I said, I’m a sorcerer. Sorcerers aren’t curses.”

“Right.”

“Well, some can be, I suppose. But ill-intentioned sorcerers perform curses on their enemies. They aren’t curses themselves.”

“All right.”

“I might _be_ cursed, but that shouldn’t transfer.”

“Really, you can stop talking any minute now.”

The pair lapsed back into silence, and James started regretting the comment. There was something inherently wrong about a skeleton sitting upright at his table. A living human skeleton. At least when that skeleton was talking, James had something else to focus on, even if it was a rapid descent into madness. Now, all he could really do was try to stop staring. It wasn’t easy.

The skull righted itself suddenly and sharply. “Rue.”

“Eh?”

“Rue,” the skeleton repeated, as if that explained everything. “Saracen Rue. That’s my name.”

James blinked. “Oh.” Strange name. Not one he’d ever heard before, either. It sounded completely made-up. “Mr. Rue, then?”

“Saracen. Please.”

The skeleton’s voice had grown softer, now. Less sure of itself. James knew it wasn’t a name the skeleton was used to, but he didn’t question it. “Interesting name.”

“It… has a history, yes.”

James nodded slowly. This was quite a world he’d stumbled into. Strange made-up names, sorcerers, sorcerers performing curses on each other, and oh, don’t forget the skeleton sharing tea with him in his farmhouse. The living skeleton. Saracen Rue.

He found that, if he didn’t concentrate too hard, he actually wanted to learn more about that world. Saracen would probably move on before too long, but there was plenty of time until then. Hopefully. At least a day, maybe? Saracen still couldn’t stand up under his own strength. Surely he wouldn’t leave before he could do at least that.

For a lack of anything else to do, James nodded again. “Saracen, then. Welcome to my humble abode, Saracen.”

He couldn’t see it, and he’d never be able to explain it, but James was sure in the following moments that Saracen was smiling.

~~

He really should have thought of Saracen sooner.

Then again, he couldn’t really be blamed for not thinking too clearly at the moment. A lot of other things were his fault, yes. Death. Destruction. Trying not to use his mind, however, could hardly be considered among them. One could argue it was the preferable course of action, impossible though it might be.

If Saracen pounded all of his bones into dust, and scattered that dust on the breeze, would he be properly dead? Or would he just exist? Boundless and weightless, forced to observe, unable to interfere?

Wasn’t that no less than what he deserved?

Trying not to use his mind was turning out to be easier than Saracen thought. There was a time he could have looked at James Walsh and known the man’s story. Looked at the walls of his cottage and known his troubles, his dreams. But now… now, there was nothing. A man, a farmer, somewhere in his late 30’s. That was all Saracen knew.

He rather liked that. He shouldn’t have, but he did. His mind was as hollow as his skull, and it felt pleasant. No, not pleasant. Refreshing. Relieving. Rejuvenating. And this was a good place. There was no magic, no war, no Necromancy, no death. Just a farmhouse. Nothing here but potatoes. Good, earthy potatoes.

Potatoes, and an impressively curious James Walsh.

“There’s more than just curses, right?” the farmer was asking now. He hadn’t stopped asking questions for the last hour, growing ever more fascinated with each answer Saracen was trying to deflect the conversation with. “Sorcery. You can use magic for good, can’t you?”

“Depends on the sorcerer.”

“What about the one who brought you back?”

A thrill of anger, sudden and flaring, jerked Saracen’s wrist bones on the table, drawing James’s gaze down. Saracen folded both hands into his lap without explanation. “That wasn’t a sorcerer.”

“Then what was it?”

“I… don’t know.”

He hadn’t had a moment of peace since then, in a very literal fashion of the word. Not even inside his own head. Anger clung to him like fur, lapping around the edges of his consciousness as the flames of a fire would, constantly burning and forever colouring his thoughts. His words. His actions. Was it any wonder he’d slowly devolved into thinking he had no choice?

For all Saracen knew, he still didn’t have a choice. That wasn’t going to stop him from making one anymore.

James kept staring at him. “You just… you don’t know…?”

“Something stopped me from moving on. I’ve never heard of it happening before, or since. But it happened to me.”

_Why?_

The word grew knives in his mind and spun uselessly around, stabbing painfully into whatever dared come near it. So Saracen stopped thinking about it.

“Must have been for something good.”

Saracen’s head jerked up. “What makes you say that?”

“Nothing. I…” James’s eyes widened at the sudden and unexpected intensity of Saracen’s attention. “You’re not evil. So whatever brought you back, it… had to have been for a good reason. Maybe you were needed somewhere?”

It took Saracen a good few minutes to get his voice to work. “You don’t know me.”

“I know you didn’t kill me.”

“Two weeks ago, I would have. And I wouldn’t have given it a second thought.”

James’s face, inexplicably, hardened. “Then it’s a good thing we’re two weeks along, isn’t it?”

Saracen hadn’t exactly aimed for more silence, but he’d at least expected James to _ponder_ that. Now Saracen was the one stunned into disbelief. James didn’t break eye contact, or whatever passed for eye contact in this particular scenario, until Saracen looked away first.

“It’s a good thing you live in the middle of nowhere,” he told the table. “A con artist would have taken advantage of your blind trust long before now.”

“Why do you think I live in the middle of nowhere?”

Saracen looked up, startled. James was smiling again, but it was a wry smile now. A dry one. A bitter expression. “Yeah, I don’t know you from a hole in the ground,” he agreed. “And yeah, you look like something out of my worst nightmares, and yeah, you scare me every time I look at you – "

“Was this meant to be an inspirational thought?”

“ - but that doesn't matter. You told me you were looking for somewhere empty because you didn’t know how you’d react. Even mad, you were trying to protect people. Not your fault you ran into me, but here I am. Not dead. Now, I’m not the sharpest tool in the shed, but if you’re evil, then my potatoes are made of gold.”

It was hard to argue with logic. Saracen usually made it a point not to dispute facts just for the sake of disputing them. James was right. James was right about everything except what counted. If he knew the truth about Vile, he’d run and never look back.

“Can you?”

With effort, Saracen turned his attention back to the conversation at hand. “Can I what?”

“Turn potatoes into gold?”

If Saracen had eyes, he might well be blinking. Two weeks ago, he was waiting patiently for a murderous god to come through a yellow portal so he could destroy it, Scorn beside him and a whole host of the dead littered above them – most of their lives ended at Saracen’s own hand. Now, he was sitting in a farmhouse in a cloth sack robe being asked if he was an alchemist.

Before he could stop himself, he laughed. “No. That takes magic I haven’t bothered to learn.”

“Then what use are you?” James asked teasingly, arms folded and his smile now much more genuine. “What can you do?”

What _could_ he do? Saracen wasn’t sure. Necromancy, he couldn’t even feel anymore. But did that mean he was powerless? The draw of the shadows and of death was his motivator for so long that Saracen couldn’t even feel the magic in his bones anymore – if there was ever any left.

But he was an Elemental before that. Maybe…

With a deep and long breath, Saracen held out his hand and snapped his fingers. Nothing happened. He tried again, the heat of the friction the only heat he ever felt against his bones. A spark, that time. Noticeable enough that James jerked back in his chair, mouth open and eyes wide.

One more snap, and a proper flame flared. Saracen held it in his cupped palm for almost a minute, concentrating, working hard on feeding the flame to make it grow. But his magic was tapped out – for the moment. It was still there, and that was all that mattered. Saracen let the flame go out, and turned to look at James.

The expression on the farmer’s face made him laugh again. Saracen hadn't laughed in such a long time that, if he wasn’t a living skeleton, he’d have sworn his facial muscles were already sore just from this second time.

It was worth it. He'd missed the feeling. God, had he missed the feeling.


	11. Where Madness Lies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warning for both attempted, and talk of, suicide.

With Saracen still unable to walk under his own power, James reluctantly left him on his own to go and get a head start on chopping the winter firewood.

_A head start._ Yeah. It was _spring._ There was a head start, and then there was coming up with any sort of excuse to leave the farmhouse and get back out into the open air. Yes, leaving Saracen alone weighed heavily on his conscience, but James sort of needed the walk right now. His head had gone somewhere past ‘reeling’ and into the territory of ‘spinning.’

Could Saracen’s head _actually_ spin?

That wasn’t helping.

The trees he walked through were buzzing with early spring activity. Birds, small rodents, the former twittering and the latter twitching the branches as they leaped along from treetop to treetop. Probably thousands of insects teeming within the bark, as well. The trunks were just as much home to these animals as the farmhouse was to James. No way could he chop before the summer. He didn’t want to get run out of his house, and he wasn’t going to do the same to anyone else, be they bird or squirrel or walking, talking skeleton.

Damn it, he was never going to get used to thinking that. Walking, talking skeleton. He was going to return from this walk to find a walking, talking skeleton staying in his farmhouse. A skeleton, furthermore, who could summon fire. Out of nowhere. Fire that burned in nothing. As far as James could tell, the flame was hovering in the air just above Saracen’s skeletal fingers. Anyone else, anyone else with skin, and James would have enjoyed the spectacle for the knowledge that there was a trick behind it. There couldn't be a trick behind this one. Not unless Saracen’s bones were somehow made of tinder.

What was going to happen now?

James kicked a pebble off the path as he tried to puzzle it out. Saracen would have to move on, and probably soon. Within the next few days. Fair enough, that was Saracen’s plan, but what was James going to do? Magic existed in the world. He’d seen it. Could he really go back to farming increasingly sick potatoes, more and more disappearing each year, like nothing had happened? Nothing had changed? He’d just been handed an opportunity on a silver plate. Could he really just ignore it?

Yes. Yes and no. Yes, he could ignore it; no, he didn’t want to.

But life wasn’t about what you wanted. It was about what you needed, and the path of least resistance to get there.

Then again… the path of least resistance for James had been farming. That path was getting harder, no denying that. Magic… if he could even do it, because he was just a simple farmer, what the hell did he know?... magic could be a better path. Couldn't it? The problem was, he wouldn't know until he was on it. A world like that, a world of sorcerers and living skeletons, wasn’t one you could step out of once you took your first foray into it. The question, then, was whether James wanted to take that foray. Whether he wanted to risk absolutely everything, up to and including his life.

And if he did, then how was he to go about asking Saracen if James could go with him? That was going to take a little bit of, whatchamacallit, _finesse_. Besides, where would James be going along with him _to?_

A scream split through the calls of the birds in the treetops. James was so used to the isolation of his farm that it took him a long moment to realise anything was wrong. When a second scream sounded, coming from the direction of his farmhouse, James turned around and ran, flat-out, back towards it.

The front door was left open. James did that a lot, out here in the middle of nowhere. But with Saracen in the house, he’d been sure to lock that door before he left. Just in case. The iron key was still in his pocket, and the door was hanging open.

Heart pounding up in his throat, James bounded over the threshold.

Saracen was standing in the middle of the room holding the firewood axe that usually sat on the porch outside. He’d hacked out two of his ribs with it. The ribs themselves were lying on the floor, each in one piece, but they’d splintered off at the ends where the axe ground into them. It left an ugly hole in his ribcage. The only reason Saracen hadn't hacked off a third one was because he’d dropped the axe, and looked very near to collapsing himself, swaying on the spot.

James cursed loudly and freely while he ran forward to catch the skeleton for the second time that day. For someone without flesh or skin, he was surprisingly heavy this time around. James had to work to maneuver Saracen over to the single bed, and lever him down gently onto the mattress.

James had never tried to hack out one of his own ribs before, but it was probably some sort of equivalent of cutting off your own arm.

Cutting off both arms.

He picked up the fallen axe, returned it to its proper place outside, and collapsed off the porch onto the grass. His stomach rolled with nausea, his breathing came hard and fast, and his heart wouldn't stop drumming in his ears. Bile rose; James forced it down. He would _not_ break, out here, with Saracen in trouble. He would _not._

He gave himself a minute to snap out of it, blinking blurry tears from his vision, and then he rose shakily to his feet. The door, he noticed dimly, was only hanging on one of its hinges. How had that happened?

Saracen didn’t move from the bed, or the position James left him in. Half-afraid he was already dead, James moved cautiously into the room. “Saracen?”

A moan. A long, low, and painful moan, making James’s heart simultaneously slow down and skip a beat. He let the anger take over again and strode furiously forward, eyes narrowed. “What the hell was that?”

Saracen didn’t answer for the longest time. One of his fingers twitched violently on the bed, but it was the only movement in the house. Finally, _finally,_ the skeleton’s jaw cracked open a centimetre. “Testing a theory.”

“Testing a – a theory?” James demanded, appalled. “A _theory?_ What theory?”

“That if I’m in enough pieces, there won’t be enough of me left to hold my consciousness in place.”

James could only stare. His mouth tried to work, but his voice wasn’t having the same idea. Saracen’s voice had wavered, but only slightly, and probably because of the pain. Otherwise, he sounded downright cold. Methodical. Practical. It was wrong. It was so very wrong, James had no idea where to start.

His gaze moved slowly back down to the two ribs on the wooden floor, and without thinking, he moved to pick them up. “You… you broke down my door, took my axe, and… what? You were going to hack yourself to bits with it? Are you _crazy?”_

“No.” The exact same tone of voice as before, and it made James want to violently shake some sense into the skeleton. “I’m not crazy. Not anymore. I’m as lucid right now as I’ll ever be again.”

“Right.” James clenched his teeth shut as he put both ribs on the table. “Because lucid men hack themselves to bits with axes.”

“They would if they were me.” Saracen moved his hands slowly down the sheets, like he was about to try and prop himself up on the bed, but a sudden yelp of pain quickly put rest to that idea. “I spent the last five years committing untold atrocities. Death is what’s waiting for me the instant I return to anyone I used to care about. It's what I deserve. The least I can do is handle it for them. If I’m barred from moving on, so much the better. Eternal torment is a fair price to pay.”

Again, all James could do was stare. “You what?”

“I can’t do it, unfortunately. The pain’s a little too much.”

He sounded so _clinical._ Like a doctor, so goddamn clinical, and matter-of-fact about his own attempted suicide, that James almost volunteered to go back out for the axe and finish the job. His fists were quivering with barely concealed fury. “People you used to care about.”

“Yes.”

_“Friends.”_

Saracen didn’t answer that one. James didn’t know it was even possible to get this angry, angry enough that he wanted to put his fist through the wall. “No. No, I’m going to tell you what you _deserve._ You deserve to live with what you did. You deserve to care. You’re going to, what, disappear on these friends of yours? Not a word, not an answer, not anything, just pack up and give up?”

“It wouldn't be the first time.”

“That makes it even _worse!”_ James punctuated the last word with a slamming of his right fist down onto the table, and felt not a hint of guilt when Saracen jerked involuntarily at the noise and cried out, once more, with the pain. “ _You can’t do that!_ You don’t just… if you _ever_ cared about them, if they _ever_ meant anything to you, _you owe them._ You owe them an answer for whatever atrocities you’re talking about. You owe them an apology for whenever that first time was. You damn well don’t get to decide when _you_ die, any more than you get to decide when _they_ die! For Christ’s sake, you –” Tears were falling down James’s cheeks, and he didn’t notice, nor would he have cared if he had. “You cut out your own _ribs_. How _selfish_ are you?”

A ringing silence followed his words. Without a face to go by, James had no way of knowing if his words hit anywhere close to home. He hoped they did. He hoped to _God_ they did. Because he wasn’t going to be able to take much more of this.

For what felt like hours, neither of them moved. James refused to break eye contact, refused to let his expression fade. His fingers closed around the closest rib on the table and he found himself clutching it hard, his fingers turning white with the strain. Strange, how responsible he could feel for a living skeleton sorcerer after only a few hours of knowing the man.

Finally, Saracen shifted carefully on the bed. “Repentance, you mean.”

James slowly released his held breath. “If that’s what you want to call it, sure.”

“Some things can’t be redeemed.”

“Horse shit. Doesn't mean you can’t _try._ You owe it to them. You owe it to _me.”_

“I've already done all I can for them. I owe you absolutely nothing but a little bit of money for the door, which I know you’d never accept anyway. I don’t deserve anything resembling life, but I can’t quite manage the axe on my own. Would you help me?”

James felt his own mind stutter, like his voice sometimes did. “ _Help_ you?”

“It wouldn't take long. A few minutes at the most. Just keep chopping until the screaming stops.”

“Are you _out_ of your _mind?_ ”

“I've been through worse, James.”

“Go to hell.” James dropped the rib on the table and spun on his heel to leave the farmhouse.

“James. Please.”

James didn’t answer. Didn't stop, didn’t turn, and didn’t pause. Not until he reached the doorway and Saracen’s voice sounded again, this time – for the first time since he held the axe – with a hint of any emotion in it at all. And it wasn’t regret. It was surprise. “James isn't your real name.”

How in the hell Saracen knew that, James didn’t wait to find out. He slammed the door behind him, and spun around only when that door fell back ajar because it was only hanging on one hinge.

Fine then. _Fine._ With a deep, steadying breath, James stuck his head through the crack in the doorway. “How did you know that?”

Saracen didn’t answer. James waited a beat, then shook his head and retreated.

He stuck around the house this time. Never let the door or the porch out of his sight. He circled the house and the adjacent garden over and over and over again, trying to rein in all the age-old emotion now threatening to swamp him, just as it had done all those years ago.


	12. Olives

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warning, once again, for discussion of suicide. After this chapter, the incident will be referenced, but not outright discussed.

One of the curses of a mind freed from all physical restraint was a painful awareness of the passing of time. Saracen couldn't fall asleep. The pain still lancing around his ribcage made it impossible to try and distract himself with daydreaming. So he didn’t need a clock to know that over two hours had passed since James left the house, and at this point, he was starting to wonder if James would ever come back again.

James who… wasn’t James. Saracen still felt ever-so-slightly bitter about that. Everything could have been over two hours ago. Well, over for everyone else; he’d likely continue existing in some incorporeal fashion for the rest of eternity. He was all right with that.

Right now, he couldn't move his torso more than a few centimeters without having to bite back another cry. The axe was gone. The ribs were on the table. He was practically helpless.

Not practically. He _was_ helpless.

Well, it was a form of punishment, he supposed. It certainly wasn’t pleasant.

The silence stretched on, and Saracen finally gave in. He brought one hand up into the air above him, tightened it into a fist, and then splayed his fingers. Nothing happened. That was all right. It would have felt a bit like cheating if it happened right away, anyway. Saracen tried again, tightening and splaying, over and over, but he didn’t so much as displace a small breeze.

Air was his second-best element. Always had been. He already knew he could summon a flame, and he felt no particular inclination to try that again. Instead, Saracen tried condensing the moisture in the air into a faint shower of rain inside the house. Predictably, that didn’t work either.

He didn’t feel cut off from magic. It just… didn’t feel right. Not ethically or morally right, but _physically_ right. He’d been defined by his Necromancy for so long now, been so addicted to the power that came with it, that using basic Elemental magic just felt _wrong._ Like having to learn to read all over again. He’d been reading medical tomes and textbooks; now, he was never going to be able to read more than an almanac at best, no matter how fast his reading became or how much of the information sank in. He’d never be as powerful as he once was. Some part of him regretted that, and it made Saracen feel physically sick.

He saw Elemental magic as weak, now. Because in comparison, it was. How could Saracen ever get up and go back to face people he used to care about when most of himself was still stuck behind this… this wall? When his first thought would probably be how easy it would have been to kill them?

It would have been easy to kill James. The Necromancy was all but purged, yet it was possible to kill someone without magic. Sorcerers tended to forget that. Saracen had ample opportunity. 

And yet, as James pointed out, he _didn’t_ kill the farmer. And he had been searching for isolation solely because he didn’t _want_ to kill anyone. Gripped in the clutches of painful Necromantic withdrawal, and Saracen had still been thinking clearly enough for that. It was a small miracle.

He hadn't tried to control James through his name, either. Not until just now. And even then, only to test a possible theory of killing himself.

It wasn’t enough. It would never be enough. _Nothing_ would ever be enough. It was the worst kind of insult for Saracen to ask for any kind of forgiveness, from anyone, and nothing he ever did or said throughout the entire rest of the century was going to change that. Even taking the name ‘Saracen Rue’ was an insult. He’d just… needed something, and none of his previous names fit anymore.

A thought started scratching, and refused to be ignored. _The rest of the century. What about for the rest of the millennium?_

Barring self-mutilation, Saracen wasn’t going to die anytime soon. And honestly, even self-mutilation might not do the trick. He would, theoretically, live forever. Was that what he’d been brought back for? To spend the rest of his unlimited lifespan trying to make up for these five years?

Maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t. It didn’t particularly matter. He had the option.

Saracen’s mind was in a blurry haze, and he knew – just knew – that it was the only reason he couldn't quite feel fury at the moment. Mostly at himself, some at this predicament, a small measure directed towards James. He knew he should be feeling it, because he hadn't gone a single moment since his resurrection without carrying that burden around. It was the anger that drew him back to his skeleton. For all Saracen knew, anger might be the only reason he was still attached to it. The haze wasn’t healthy, but for the moment, he welcomed it.

It vanished when he heard the slow creaking of the door being opened.

James came into the room, body language and expression all indicative of someone who wasn’t angry. Relaxed, back in control. He wasn’t smiling anymore, though. His face was still stony, his eyes hard. He took a chair from the table the ribs were lying on, dragged it over to the side of the bed, and sat down.

Once again, the silence stretched on. Saracen was about to try and break it when James abruptly started talking, like he was trying to cut the skeleton off before he could lose the nerve. “Have you ever been to Cork? The city, I mean. Not here.”

Saracen closed his jaw and nodded. Once. A while ago. On a mission with the Dead Men.

“Then you know what it’s like. It’s got nobles. It’s got beggars. The rich, the poor, everything in between. I was born poor. There was a… a kid, in the nobleman’s family my parents served. He was the only one who ever really talked to me. We were the same age, and life is so much simpler when you’re a kid. Same age, instant friends. You’re kids, so no one expects you to know any better. Hell, his tutors even started tutoring me. No one bothered us. We grew up together.”

“What does this have to do with – ”

“Shut up and let me finish.”

Not really being in a position to argue, Saracen obeyed.

“We did everything together when we were kids. Things changed as we got older, but he never forgot about me. He… actually went out of his way to make work easier for me, half the time.” James smiled, but it was a sad smile, borne from a bittersweet memory. “The other half of the time, he made sure I knew I was the servant. The cook, the sweep, the valet, the footman. Growing up, you know, you sort of realize what your place in the world is.

“One day, his dad died, and he became the head of the family. He changed overnight. He had a temper. He was selfish. Treated us like crap in his shoes, or worse. Times got hard, he had to cut back, and one of the first things he did was fire the lot of us. No warning, no apology. Nothing to help us find new work. Most of us became beggars in the streets, ‘cause no one hires a servant that’s already been sacked once. I ended up whittling things and selling them. I was always good at working with wood. Got me a little more than just begging, enough for food, and a roof most nights.” He hesitated. “I wasn’t upset about it, mind you. There’s a bridge over the bay there where a bunch of us slept, and it was nice not having to do work for someone else. Everything you do is your own reward. You make friends because you want to, not because you’re forced into one room together.

Then one day a copper shows up and, turns out, he… killed himself. With a dagger. No reason. No note. Just a will, leaving everything he owned to me, including the house. The house with a pile of blood in the master bedroom. Why? Well, not like I’ll ever know. He never bothered to stick around and explain. Just figured the world was better off without him, and off he went. Solved a bunch of problems for him, I’m sure, but he left the rest of us – me, who he hated, and his family, with nothing – nothing but a pack of mysteries we’ll never solve.”

Something dark settled into James’s eyes. The smile had long since vanished. “Thing is, the copper knew right where to find me because he’d put it in the will. He knew where I was. He could have come talk. I’d have listened. I always did, and he knew that. But he didn’t. So I gave everything to his wife and kids, and I moved on.”

James’s eyes were brimming, but no tears fell. Instead, he just… deflated. Like he’d talked until he had no wind left, and now there was nothing left to say. He slumped backwards in the chair and took a deep breath.

Saracen had absolutely no idea how to respond. He understood now why James told him the story. Victims of suicide rarely thought about what effects their actions would have on the people who got left behind.

James rubbed a hand across his face and managed a shaky ghost of a smile. “Figured the world was better off without him, I guess. Well, maybe the world was, but I sure as hell wasn’t.”

Finally, all Saracen could think of to say was the truth. “He fired a few servants.”

“He ruined our lives. He knew it, too. Just didn’t give us the chance to forgive him for it.”

“I killed people, James.”

“And that doesn't much matter to me, does it? _I’m_ not dead. Saracen, you don’t get to decide whether people can forgive you or not. Kind of defeats the whole point of forgiveness. You don’t forgive yourself, fine. But at least give your friends the respect of letting them decide for themselves, yeah? Because trust me, they really _will_ never forgive you otherwise.”

“You’re acting as if there’s a chance they ever will.”

“You’ll never find out by hacking out your own ribs, will you?”

Saracen didn’t answer. He didn’t know what to answer with.

James leaned forward in his seat and folded his hands under his chin. “I don’t know anything about you, but I think I can guess. You were born normal, you said. You were a good person once, right? Then why the hell can’t you be one again?”

“I’m not – ”

“You’re a goddamn _sorcerer._ You can do go out and do things most of us can only ever dream about. You want forgiveness so badly, go out and _do good things._ Save people. Make their lives easier. Put some good into the world. If you take yourself _out_ of the world, where does that leave anyone? Are you going to kill again?”

“I – ”

“Are you going to _murder_ again?”

For a brief flash, Saracen was reminded of Hopeless. Knowing how the person was going to respond, cutting them off with the response to their unspoken question before they could finish it.

_Was_ Saracen going to murder again?

He couldn't make a boundless promise, because he didn’t know. He didn’t understand the way his own mind worked at the moment, or anything about his state of existence. What he could do, and what he very much intended to do, was retake control. He would not be ruled by his own anger again. He would _not._ He would kill only when there was no other choice, and that decision would be objectively made. He’d falter, he knew that. He couldn't quite do this on his own.

But then again, he wouldn't have to.

The true meaning of James’s question was quite simple. Was Saracen going to become Vile again? Would he kill solely for the sake of killing again? Would he ever use _Necromancy_ again?

_No._ His voice failed him, so he mutely shook his head.

“Exactly.” If James had been expecting any other answer, he certainly didn’t give any indication. “So, as long as no more murder is going to happen anyway, which is the better option? Changing absolutely nothing? Or throwing a few more good deeds into the world?”

“That depends on the good deeds.”

“Why?”

Saracen almost laughed. “Because if they’re not enough to make up for what happened, then there’s no point.”

“What kind of logic is _that?_ It’s a good deed. Where the hell can you possibly go wrong?”

_Everywhere,_ Saracen wanted to say. One little slip-up, one little mistake, even one person realizing the truth about where he’d been for the last five years, and anything could happen. Anything from a painful death to _Vile_ being loosed back upon the world.

So many places where it could go wrong. But Saracen didn’t say that. Because James had a valid point.

“I’m going to help you out with your first one.” James leaned back again and crossed his arms. “Something simple. I’m going to trust you. If I tell you my real name, can I trust that you’re not going to control me into chopping you up?”

Saracen glanced up, surprised. He’d never mentioned how it was that he knew James wasn’t the farmer’s real name. Had James worked it out for himself?

When James made it clear he was waiting for an answer, Saracen slowly shook his head from side to side. “But,” he added, “it wouldn't work. The taking of a new name seals the old one. It doesn't matter if I know it or not, there’s nothing I can do with it.”

After a long moment, James nodded. “Okay. Then let’s try this. I have no idea if you’re lying about that. For all I know, I could give you my real name and have… pieces of bones for firewood, or something. So I’m choosing to trust that you’re telling the truth, either way. Sound simple enough?”

Very simple. Too simple. And at the same time, it was more responsibility than Saracen felt he should ever have been trusted with.

“It’s Edmond.”

A tilt of his head was Saracen’s only response.

“But…” James stood up and wandered back over to the table with his chair. “I’d prefer it if you kept calling me James. I've sort of… made it mine, now.”

“I fully intend to.”

“Thank you.” James shoved the chair back into its original spot, and picked up the longer of the two ribs. “Can you get this fixed?”

“I think so.”

“Good.” James pointed the rib at Saracen like a sword. “Do it.”

In danger of being speared on the end of one of his own ribs, Saracen felt he was justified in only having one possible reply this time. “Yes, sir.”

One self-satisfied nod, and James whipped the rib through the air like it really was a sword. He didn’t have much apparent skill, but then again, it was a bone. No swordsman would have any apparent skill. “Does this hurt?”

“No.” Saracen slowly and gingerly managed to prop himself up. “Why James?”

“Why – oh.” The rib descended down to right beside James’s thigh. “It was his name. The nobleman. My friend.” He shrugged. “Just felt like the right thing to do.”

“James Walsh?”

“No. Just James. Walsh was always _my_ surname.”

“Ah.”

James raised an eyebrow, and his face creased into a genuine smile. “So, I’m not headed for the axe.”

“No,” Saracen agreed. “You’re not.”

The smile broadened, and James stepped closer to the bed. “You know, there just might be hope for you yet.” He poked Saracen’s breastbone with the end of the rib. “Don’t let that burn out. Hope’s a wonderful thing. Hope’s what keeps you going through the hard times.”

Saracen nodded. “Pleasant.”

“Oh, definitely. I want to shake the hand of the man who first invented hope.”

“No, I mean… my name. Or what it used to be. Pleasant. Skulduggery Pleasant.”

James was struck speechless. Saracen shrugged in the midst of the uncomfortable silence. “You trusted me. It’s only fair that I return the favour. But… I’d also appreciate it if you kept calling me Saracen. At least for the time being.”

With the way a smile sprouted and grew on James’s face, you’d think Saracen had just handed the man the secret to life. “Sure. Saracen. The world’s a good place, Saracen. You know why?”

“Why?”

“Because there are olives.”

Saracen tilted his head in confusion. “Olives?”

“Yep. Olives. You can eat them, peel them, squeeze them into oil, dry them, press them. They’re a sign of hope. A sign of peace. There’s a reason they’re expensive, you know. They make the world a good place.”

“Olives?”

“Olives.”

Before Saracen could quite stop himself, he chuckled. “I’ll find you some olive oil sometime.”

“Could you? That’d be great. Never had olive oil before. I heard it tastes great, though.”


	13. Magic and Rabbit Bones

The rest of the day went a lot more smoothly – especially since James gave up on getting anything properly done until Saracen was gone. The man needed constant watching. It made the next few hours awkward and quiet, since neither James nor Saracen enjoyed talking about themselves or their lives. James eventually descended into _cleaning_ the small house, which he’d never properly done before and mildly worried him.

Eventually, they managed a half-conversation about abstract concepts like the meaning of life while James worked, during which James discovered that even sorcerers didn’t have much of a clue. They lived longer, and that was about it. It didn’t give them any great insights, and they definitely didn’t understand anything any better. If anything, they understood less. Fortunately, Saracen was the first to admit that.

Now, James didn’t know much about human anatomy. He’d be the first to admit _that._ But even he knew you needed muscles and flesh to feel pain. He was frustrated with Saracen’s simple answer of “It’s magic,” even though he already knew he could never hope to understand it.

“I know,” he tried one more time. “But… how? Is it a spell? A curse? Did someone do it to you? And… _how_ did someone do it to you?”

“I don’t know,” Saracen patiently repeated. “My condition has baffled some of the greatest minds in science-magic. I doubt you’ll work it out in one afternoon. _I_ hardly understand myself.”

“So you've just… always felt pain?”

“Ever since I first came back, yes.”

James stared. It wasn’t the first time he had during this conversation, and it likely wouldn't be the last, either. “I thought you said you came back all broken up.”

“I did.”

“And stuffed into a bag. Tossed in a river.”

“Yes.”

“And that you put yourself back together.”

“Your memory is exceptional.”

At a loss for what to say next, James settled on the most obvious question there was. “Didn't that _hurt?”_

He heard what might have been a low chuckle, but the sound was gone too quickly for James to be sure. “Yes. It was… confusing. Very complicated. I knew I was dead. I knew I was watching the consequences of my death. I wasn’t burdened by any sort of feeling until my side started losing ground again, and it was so _much_ feeling all at once that I didn’t even notice anything was different at first. Have you ever been in the middle of a hurricane?”

James mutely shook his head.

“A twister?”

“No.”

“It was a little like that. All pain, all fury, all agony. Some of it a large waterfall, I think. I couldn't perceive anything beyond that pain for the longest time. I was convinced I’d actually moved on, and gone straight to hell.”

An involuntary shudder swept through James’s body. “Hell exists?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think so. I wasn’t thinking very clearly at the time.”

James couldn't imagine what that must have been like. Coming back to life was traumatic enough; but going through all that pain? Limbs essentially being constantly ripped off? No one around to help him, to ground him, to so much as drag him out of the river? How long did he tumble along in that spinning agony, no idea where he was or what was going on, with no end in sight?

“No wonder you went insane,” he murmured, stopping next to the window to scan the field outside before taking a chair near the house’s only bed.

“No.” Saracen hesitated. “Well, yes, but no. I've been through pain before. I don’t think that’s what…”

The skeleton’s voice trailed off, but James knew what he was going to say. _I don’t think that’s what made me kill._ Even with his inexperience, James had to agree. A man driven to kill was driven by ongoing circumstances, not by one single event.

“Then what did?” he asked before he could stop himself. Even to his own ears, his voice was far too quiet.

Saracen didn’t answer, and a part of James was glad for that. A different part of him, however, was sorely wishing Saracen would just _admit_ to something for once. Probably a little unfair, since they’d only known each other for less than a day. Still, Saracen’s sudden and abrupt silences were getting frustrating.

So were his sudden and abrupt subject changes. “How do you dispel anger, James?”

“Dispel…?”

“When you get angry, what do you do?”

“I…” James paused. “I don’t know. Depends, I guess.”

“When you found out your friend was dead, and he’d left you everything he owned, you were angry, yes? Immediately so?”

“Yeah.”

“What did you do?”

“Well, I didn’t sit around and _mope_ about it.” As if to prove that point, James physically got to his feet and started pacing again. “I decided I was going to make his death mean something. I took his name, I took _some_ of his money, I bought a couple wagon loads of lumber, and got a few old friends to help me build a house out here, and no one’s bothered me since. I farm potatoes, I sell them in the city every year, donate a bushel to the homeless, and come back. It’s not much, I know, but I’m happy. It feels like Ja – like he died for something, now. Like he made something good happen.”

“And the anger? What happened to that?”

James stopped in his tracks and frowned. “That just sort of… faded.”

“Faded?”

“Yeah. I decided I couldn't really forgive him, but I could at least move past it. That I could at least forgive _myself_ for not being there.”

Saracen’s head tilted slightly to the side in what James was beginning to recognise as a form of confusion. He immediately tried to explain. “Anger like that doesn't last, Saracen. It can’t. You have to either let it go, or let it grow cold. Otherwise, you burn up. Or explode. Or go nuts.”

_Or go nuts._

Suddenly James understood, and he paled. He sank heavily back into the chair. “You never stopped feeling it, did you?”

For once, Saracen didn’t clam up. He nodded. “Rage is what drew me back to my skeleton. It stands to reason that rage is what’s keeping me here. I don’t have a heart, or a brain. There’s nothing to limit what I feel. I haven’t experienced a moment free of that rage since the day I was killed.”

“You can’t…” With no idea how to finish that sentence, James swallowed hard and tried something different. “What were you angry at? Losing the war? The guy who killed you?”

“Serpine.” Saracen nodded once, slowly. “Nefarian Serpine. He murdered my wife and daughter to lure me into a trap, tortured me endlessly for weeks, and then killed me. He’s not, as you can imagine, a very nice man.”

There was absolutely nothing James could think of to say to that. Sympathy overwhelmed him and threatened to drown him. The words reminded James, forcibly, of just how much more… _divine_ sorcerers were, how much higher their level was. How much more powerful they were. How much stronger. Almost like a different species, with how different their lives were and how much more monumental their _problems_ were. Compared to that, Saracen must have thought James’s life story so utterly mundane that it was laughable.

“I don’t,” Saracen said, his skull now tilted in the other direction.

James started. “Don’t what?”

“Think your problems are any less important. No, I can’t read minds. Your face is just remarkably expressive.”

James opened and closed his mouth a few times before he could get his voice to work. “Oh.”

“I can, however, introduce you to a mind-reader.”

“No,” James answered immediately. “Thank you. I think I’m fine.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, alright, then.” Saracen slid his skeletal arms back up the bed, paused for a moment, and suddenly pushed himself up. With another animal-like yelp of pain, he collapsed back down.

James sat tensely forward, one hand gripping the edge of the chair. “What were you trying to do?”

“Get up.” Again, Saracen moved his arms up.

“What for?”

“It’s just a pair of ribs.” Saracen moved his hands up a little further this time, and gently began rolling over onto his side. “Pain is in the mind. If I’m going to be able to walk alone all the way to Cork, I have to be able to get off this bed by myself.”

James very nearly rose to his feet to push Saracen back down. “Are you _actually_ nuts? You chopped off two of your own _ribs,_ and – ”

He cut himself off when Saracen didn’t yell out again. All the way over on his side now, the skeleton carefully and gingerly moved his legs forward, off the bed. One skeletal foot touched the bare wooden floorboards, then the other. James was still tense, still hyper-aware, ready for the slightest jerk or spasm, but none came. None would, either. No matter how much pain Saracen was actually feeling, it wouldn't show in any way other than through his voice. His voice, or a collapse.

Saracen stayed in that position for about ten seconds, then just as gingerly pushed himself up all the way. There was a sharp movement of air James took a few seconds to realise came from Saracen – like Saracen could actually _breathe_ – but no cry of pain. Transitioning all of his weight onto his feet, however, came abruptly and without warning, Saracen levering himself off the bed before any potential pain could send him back down on it. A noise came more audibly this time, but it wasn’t sharp.

James was grudgingly impressed. “I take it back,” he admitted. “Good job. Ready to lie back down again?”

“And undo all that effort?” Saracen gave James a mysterious look, one that James chose to perceive as a grin because of the eternal grin on Saracen’s skull. “Not on your life. If we could take a short walk outside, that would be splendid.”

~~

It wasn’t short.

It wasn’t short because practicing with fire, apparently, was more safely done outside a wooden house.

There was a set of wind chimes hanging off the house’s porch, made by James a good few years ago. They were carved rabbit bones, hanging on pieces of string, blown about by the breeze to bang against each other and create a pleasing hollow sound. There wasn’t a breeze anymore, leaving the air feeling stale; and so when they passed the instrument on their way down the steps, the sudden noise of their familiar crashing made both James and Saracen glance around in surprise. It faded quickly, and the rabbit bones hung where they should have after about a minute.

James glanced at Saracen. “That’s never happened before.”

“Probably not,” Saracen agreed. “I think that was me.”

“You think that was – ”

Saracen’s hand snapped forward again, like it had done to balance himself going down the steps, and the wind chimes moved once more in a sudden localized breeze. James stumbled down the last step and had to run for a second to regain his balance. He spun back around to stare at Saracen, and the skeleton – now wrapped in the earlier sack robe – gave a careful shrug. “I used to be able to blow your house down with a movement like that. But moving wind chimes is a start, I suppose.”

“Fire _and_ air?” James asked weakly.

“And water. And earth.”

It was one thing to be told someone could do magic. It was another to be faced with it. It was ironic, seeing as the living skeleton standing there should have been more than enough to clue James in. “And controlling names?”

Saracen shook his head. “That’s something any sorcerer with the right knowledge can do.”

James was overcome with the sudden urge to sit down again, but this time, he fought it. “That’s… progress, though. Isn't it? You could only do the fire before.”

“It’s frustratingly slow progress, but… yes. It’s progress.”

Most of the rest of the walk was done in silence, with James trying to process everything, and Saracen… Saracen thinking about whatever it was he thought about when he wasn’t talking. He didn’t share it, and James didn’t ask. It wasn’t until they came to the edge of the woods, which James had been planning on skirting around to take the short way back, that something finally occurred to him and he stopped. “When are you leaving?”

“Here?” Saracen stopped alongside James, leaning against one of the slim trunks for extra support. “Tonight.”

“You can _barely walk,_ Saracen.”

“And I’ll _barely walk_ all the way to Cork. It really doesn't matter how fast I get there. I just need to get there.”

“What’s waiting for you in Cork?”

“Absolutely nothing. Which is why I need to get there.”

James resisted the urge to feel jealous. That was just stupid. Jealous of what, exactly? Of Cork? Of Saracen? Of sorcerers in general, who got to deal with living skeletons on a regular basis, when all James had to look forward to was rotting potatoes?

It finally hit him then. “Can anyone do magic?”

Saracen’s head tilted back towards him. “I am not teaching you magic.”

It shouldn't have been surprising that the question was so transparent, but James jerked backwards anyway. _He’d_ barely realised what he was getting at. “Why not?”

“Because I’m a tad injured at the moment.”

“So?”

The amusement was back in Saracen’s voice. “So, I should be lying down. Weren't you the one who insisted that even a walk was a bad idea?”

“I’m not asking for a demonstration or anything. Just tell me how it works. Please?”

“Not everyone can do magic. Those who do are usually born into it, so the chances of you becoming a sorcerer are extraordinarily slim.”

“But at least there’s a chance, right? It could work. I don’t want to die never knowing how great I could have been. Please?”

“I really don’t – ”

“Please?”

“James – ”

“Please?”

“It’s really not a good idea.”

James glared. “Neither is killing people, or hacking out your own ribs.”

Saracen’s head tilted. “Which is precisely why I stopped both. And why I shouldn't do this. What point were you trying to make, again?”

“Oh, I don’t remember,” James gave up with a shrug. “Something about how reckless you are, I think. Never mind. Forget I said anything.”

Saracen’s head tilted further, and for a while, neither of them said anything. It was only when James moved to keep walking that Saracen made a noise like he was clearing his throat.

“If you did have magic – and I’m not saying you do, but if you did – fire is the easiest one to start with. It’s also the most difficult one to control. It also has a particular chemical reaction when combined with flammable materials such as wood, so we’ll have to stay outside, and preferably in the middle of a field.”

James grinned, slow but wide, in surprise. “You mean it?”

“Of course. Wood is highly flammable, and I’d rather not destroy your house.”

~~

The time flew by, and before either of them knew it, dusk had fallen. They didn’t actually get anywhere, and both came to the conclusion that James didn’t have a drop of magical blood in his body, but James couldn't even care by the end of it. He was having too much fun. Saracen started striking flames onto twigs so James could experiment, and while he never managed to make the flames do more than dance wildly in the breeze created by thrashing the twigs about, simply thrashing them about was strangely exhilarating. Maybe everything was, when you were dealing with magic. Either way, when there was no more light for them to see by other than the fire, Saracen announced that it was now or never. James tried to protest; Saracen said he wasn’t going to steal the bed, and he brooked no other argument whatsoever.

“What about provisions?” James demanded.

“What provisions?”

“Food!” He caught himself a moment too late, and cringed. “Never mind. Um.” Not water, not food. Not even a bedroll, because Saracen didn’t sleep and wouldn't need the comfort either way. All he really needed was something to lean on while he walked, both his ribs, and some sort of hood.

James, who was quickly learning how to make everyday things like sacks into workable clothes, managed to turn a deerskin he was saving into something like a hood. Enough to hide Saracen from passersby, anyway. Combine that with the robe made from a sack, and when he was shuffling along in the dark Saracen looked enough like some sort of monster that it made James laugh.

“Don’t laugh,” Saracen grumbled. “It’s _your_ handiwork.”

“I’m not the one who has to wear it!” James took a deep breath to stifle any more laughter, though his eyes still shone with mirth, and he sighed. “I’m never going to see you again, am I?”

“Probably not. Don’t worry, it’s for the best.”

“For you, maybe.” James eyed Saracen critically. “Just promise me you’re actually going to find those friends of yours.”

“I solemnly swear.”

“And get your ribs healed.”

“I know a specialist in Dublin. That’ll be the first thing I do.”

“Right. And… try not to cut them off again.”

Saracen shrugged. “I can’t quite promise that. We’re still in the middle of a war.”

“Then don’t be the one who cuts them off.”

“I’ll do my level best.”

They both drifted into silence, and James suddenly didn’t want to be alone. He’d been perfectly fine with it for the last twenty years, and only now did the loneliness of it all impress itself upon him like a big, thick, choking blanket. He’d just seen a living skeleton, and now he was… what? Going to go back to farming potatoes? Could he? Even if he wanted to?

He watched Saracen pick up both his ribs, look around the tiny house, and nod once, slowly. “I’ll be off, then.”

“Hm.”

“Off to the big and bustling city of Cork.”

“I know.”

“I have everything I need, none the worse for wear. Should take me about two days if I don’t stop.”

“It’ll take you longer than that if you keep standing there and talking about it,” James pointed out with a forced smile.

Saracen hesitated. “Good point. Well made.” He stopped, looked over at the cottage’s open door, and then back to James. “I’m not sure I remember.”

“What, how to get there?”

“How to be a decent human being.”

The silence that followed those words was much less awkward, and not necessarily in a good way. James wished there was something more he could do. Something he could say, some magical word to make everything all right for the skeleton sorcerer who had killed people. But there wasn’t, because he was just a simple farmer. All he could really do was pray, and he didn’t think he had the right to do even that anymore. “You’ll do fine,” he tried. “You've done fine so far.”

Saracen chuckled. “That’s because I like you. I knew from the moment you pulled off my leg that I would. But a big bustling city, that’s… different. There’ll be annoying people. Boring people. People who make me angry.” He paused, looking once again towards the doorway. “I’m not sure if I can handle walking through crowds like… well, like nothing ever happened, and nothing ever will again.”

“You can.” James made his voice as firm as he could. “You can, and you will.”

“I’m not a decent human being.”

“So act like one.”

Saracen tilted his head, considering James with an unreadable expression. James held the gaze, looking straight into those empty eye sockets. A moment passed; then Saracen broke the eye contact, and headed for the doorway without a word.

“Saracen.” James spoke without thinking, knowing only that he couldn't just let it end like this. “Or – no, wait. What was that other name again?”

Saracen turned. “Skulduggery Pleasant.”

“Right, that was it. Skulduggery.” James smiled. “Good luck out there, Skulduggery.”

There was another pause, which James was starting to dread because he could never tell exactly what the skeleton was thinking. But then Skulduggery nodded at him. “You too, Edmond.”

And then he was gone.

For a long, long time, James just stood there, staring at the open doorway, numb to all thought and all feeling. It was only when a light wind blew the door into the wall that he jerked out of his reverie, went to close the door, remembered that it was only hanging on one hinge, and gave up for the night. He could fix it in the morning, easily enough. Right now… right now, he was tired.

The bed was right there, and any sort of food would take too long to prepare. So without any further fanfare, James sank onto the sheets and pulled a blanket up over his shoulders.


	14. The Curse of the Potato Skeleton

James woke up some indeterminable amount of time later to find his house on fire.

With a curse, he rolled off the bed and dropped down to the wooden floorboards, trying to take a deep breath and only choking on smoke. Flames licked loudly at the edges of his bed frame, and had already made short work of one wall and part of his ceiling. James was a sound sleeper by nature, but how that _din_ didn't wake him up, he couldn't begin to guess. There was a roaring in his ears, sparks flying everywhere, a rafter from the ceiling falling down over in a corner somewhere, and he couldn't see for the thick smoke that filled his vision.

Convinced he was dreaming, James dropped down onto his stomach, right next to the floor, and gulped in a lungful of clean air – or cleaner air, anyway. Clear enough that he didn’t choke. Sweat was dripping down off his brow, making him painfully aware of the intense heat that stifled the place, and James started praying. He closed his eyes for a few moments, worked on breathing more slowly, and then shuffled forward on his elbows towards where he knew the door was.

In the haze of the confusion and the terror, he tried to work out what happened. He didn’t leave a candle burning. His house was in a field, solely because he didn’t want to be affected by forest fires, and he hadn't had to deal with one for twenty years. Why now? What caused this? How was he supposed to _rebuild_ after this?

A crashing sound from somewhere behind him made James shuffle faster, breathe a little quicker, blink the sweat out of his eyes and wipe his forehead with his sleeve. Almost there… he _had_ to be almost there, it wasn’t a very big house, and – _there._ The door, hanging on its one hinge. It wasn’t on fire yet, although he could see flames burning through part of the wall. James gritted his teeth, locked down his numbing horror, took a deep breath, and struggled up towards the door handle. Somehow, the door was closed now. Wedged shut. He couldn't just crawl through, and when he tried the handle, it didn’t budge.

Gripped with a sudden and real terror that he was going to be burned alive, James whirled around and tried to see other options through the heat haze. His one window was too small to climb through. Anywhere he could potentially get out through a wall was burning much too fiercely, or the heat was too intense and would burn him all on its own. He was trapped. He was well and truly trapped.

With a guttural cry of fear unnaturally warped by the heat in the air, James twisted and kicked at the wooden door, right next to the handle, right where the rusted lock was, over and over again. The door never budged once. He could feel the heat intensifying on his back, and with one last desperate strike, James thrust his hand forward against the door and _shoved._

It blew out of its frame completely.

A blast of cold night air met his face, and he drank it in, stumbling through the open doorway just as a surge of fire flared up behind him. The porch sagged under his weight, and nearly collapsed; James managed not to fall through it by leaping forward, falling down the steps, and rolling to a brutally painful stop on the grass.

He did it. _He was free._ He wasn’t trapped anymore.

Voices sounded from around the side of the house. Voices that shouted, not in alarm or panic, but in anger. Footsteps now, running footsteps coming very quickly towards where James lay on the ground and struggled to remain conscious. Something about the voices penetrated through into his foggy memory, and his consciousness snapped to attention.

Damn it. _Damn it._

He pulled himself up onto his hands and knees, grunting with the pain that shot through his left leg behind him, and practically dragged himself over to the remains of the porch railing. He used it to pull himself to his feet, tested putting weight on his left leg, decided that he could handle the throbbing pain it resulted in, and stumbled forward as he tried to run into the woods.

He was just a little too late. A large hand grabbed him by the scruff of the neck, jerking him back, and James cried out in shock and fear. He twisted, ducked, tried to swing a punch into the considerable bulk behind him, but nothing worked, and his legs swung helplessly as the man who grabbed him picked him up like he didn’t weigh anything more than a stick and carried him over to where the rest of the voices were.

This was it. He was going to die. James thought about the door, and how hard it was to smash it open. Because these men had blocked it, of course, intending for him to be caught in the fire, and they weren't going to give up. They weren't going to let him go just because he was a little stronger than he looked.

_Thank you, God,_ he was surprised to hear himself thinking. _Thank you for at least letting me meet a living skeleton before I died._

A disappointed _tsk_ ing noise sounded in his ear. “James Walsh, was it? I remember you. Do you remember me?”

He wanted to open his eyes and spit in the face of the man who’d just spoken, because yes, James remembered him. He looked and acted like a snake. He was a businessman – or at least, that was what he called himself. Professional sleazebag, more like. He swindled most of James’s friends into poverty, and James had retaliated by swindling the man out of every single last cent he owned. That was the one and only reason he’d taken on his childhood friend’s name, and the only time he ever used the surname.

“Mr. Walsh, I’m hurt. Ignoring me is _rude_ , you know.”

Someone’s fist swung into the side of James’s head, and pain exploded in his skull. He squeezed his eyes shut against it, whimpering slightly, growing slack in the grip of the large man. If they were going to kill him, please, _please_ let it be painless.

“Do you remember the day we met? Quite the nobleman, you were. Walked into my office all prim and proper, offering me the business deal of a lifetime. Only you called yourself James Filimore.” The voice grew cold. “You tricked me with the stolen name of a nobleman. Imagine my surprise, when I discovered that the real James Filimore stabbed himself in the gut more than a year before that. All the money I invested, all the time I spent preparing, _gone.”_

Another punch. This one was harder, faster, and came on the other side of James’s head. He cried out, twitching in the air, kicking his legs out against the pain that threatened to drag him back down into unconsciousness.

“Look at me, James.”

And because he didn’t want to get punched again, he did. He dragged his eyes open to look properly at Mr. O’Malley, and the man hadn't changed in twenty years.

“There. That’s better. Thought you could steal from me, could you?”

There were several possible answers to that question. There was the truth. There was a lie. There was probably also the smart thing to say, and the dumb thing. With the pain swimming around James’s head, leg, and lungs, he couldn't tell which was which, and so he resorted to the basics.

He was going to die. No question about that. The only question was how much pain he was going to suffer. And if he wanted to be killed immediately, instantly, right here, he had to get O’Malley angry enough to stop caring.

And so, James managed a smile. “I _was_ hoping to have your clothes off you by the time I was through."

The so-called businessman frowned. "Excuse me?"

"Wasn't that what you wanted? Certainly seemed to me like that was what you were angling for.”

That did it. O’Malley’s eyes grew hard, and he straightened up. “This man’s a waste of breath. My money’s long gone. Finish him off.”

“Ah,” came a loud voice from on top of the ridge. “That would be a bad idea.”

The men, as one, all spun to face it. James followed suit, as much as he could.

“Who are you?” O’Malley demanded, scanning the darkened ridge with an angry gaze. “Show yourself!”

“Of course.” A dark figure appeared out of the gloom of the trees, stepped off the ridge, and fell neatly down to the ground below. Like a dancer, he kept his balance gracefully, his descent slowing as he fell so he could alight nimbly onto the field on the same level as O’Malley.

James stared. _Saracen._ He would recognise that sack robe and deerskin hood anywhere.

O’Malley’s eyes narrowed. “Who are you?”

“Bit of a long story.” Saracen walked slowly over to the group, not menacingly, but casually. As if he were approaching a group of friends, out on a stroll. “And certainly not the most interesting question here. I think the most interesting question here is what you’re planning on doing to poor James Walsh.”

O’Malley eyed the figure, head lowered, anger evaporating. “I don’t see how that’s any of your business. I’m gonna ask you one more time. Who are you?”

“Oh, but I don’t like James Walsh either. He imprisoned me, you see. Confined me to a small space, lost me an arm and a leg, and he wouldn't stop _asking_ me things. I’d just like to know what you plan on doing to him.”

Not good. This was not good. Where O’Malley would have just killed James before, he was now being given the time to think about it, and James could tell he was remembering about whatever other backup plans he might have had. Painful plans. Plans that would be much more satisfying than outright killing James. The smile that spread across the businessman’s face was more than just James’s death sentence. “Well, I _was_ going to burn him alive. Seeing as he weaseled his way out of that one, I was thinking some good old-fashioned torture. I need to make an example out of him.”

Saracen nodded slowly as he approached. “I see. I see. Solid business plans.” He didn’t say anything else until he’d stopped right in front of O’Malley, and O’Malley was frowning with fresh confusion over the bizarre situation he’d found himself in. And then, when Saracen spoke again, it was brightly and cheerfully. “Tell me, have you ever heard of the curse of the potato skeleton?”

“The…” O’Malley faltered. “The what?”

“The curse of the potato skeleton. You know curses. All the rage these days. I don’t suppose you've heard of the potato skeleton one?"

“I…” O’Malley stopped, frowned, and tried again. “The _what_ skeleton?”

“You’re really having trouble with the concept of curses, aren't you?”

O’Malley looked towards his men. His men looked toward him. James, impossibly, wanted to laugh. He didn’t.

Apparently deciding that intimidation was always the best fallback plan, O’Malley resorted to his trademark glare and snarl. “Who the hell are you?”

“First, ask me what the potato skeleton is.”

“I don’t care what the – ”

“It’s not actually the skeleton of a potato, which is a common misconception. It’s a human skeleton. And he wasn’t always a skeleton. He was born perfectly normal, if a bit strange. Obsessed, really. You see, he became very passionate about farming the perfect potato. He got very involved in the process, measuring out exact dimensions, making sacrifices to the gods of rain, what have you. But he never quite managed it. Oh, he grew perfectly good potatoes; in fact, he grew the best in the country. But that never mattered to him. He only wanted the perfect one.”

He paused for a moment there, as if giving O’Malley time to respond. O’Malley, however, didn’t look able to speak if he tried. The urge to laugh was only growing, and James did his best to hold it back.

“Then he met a girl. Nice girl. Charming. You know how the story goes. They fell in love, he forgot all about the perfect potato, and the potatoes, God knows why, felt slighted. Inanimate objects tend to, you know, in curses like this. They tend to have souls, and feelings, and take things far too personally. Rather than trying to get to know the girl, and understanding the love that had grown to exist between her and the man, they felt the need to interfere. So they killed the man.” Saracen paused. “And flayed him alive. Hence his being a skeleton. Anyway, the story goes that his skeleton haunts these lands, cursed to protect and prolong the life of whoever manages to farm the perfect potato.”

When nobody seemed about to say anything, Saracen folded his arms. “That’s it. That was the curse of the potato skeleton. I felt you ought to know it.”

O’Malley was spluttering. James, for his part, was practically doubled over in the air trying to contain his laughter. It didn’t quite work, but the laughter became a pained choking noise, and that fact was only making O’Malley angrier. When he’d finally managed to work through the spluttering, he rounded on Saracen and jabbed a finger angrily towards him. “Was that a threat?”

Saracen’s hooded skull tilted to the side. “I’m not sure. Was it?”

“I don’t have anything to fear from a _ghost!”_

“Ah, but it _isn't_ a ghost. It’s a skeleton. A skeleton, moreover, who can breathe fire.”

“Breathe _fire!?”_

“Indeed. Quite well, too. I’m not sure why the potatoes felt he should have that ability. Maybe his secret life’s passion was to farm the perfect pepper.”

“I've had enough of this clown!” O’Malley turned to his men. “You,” he started, pointing at the large man holding James, “put him in the wagon. The rest of you, I don’t care what you do, just... stop him from talking, and it’ll be a bonus in your pay, I can guarantee you.”

“How do you pay someone when you’re dead?” Saracen wanted to know.

“I’m not dead!” O’Malley turned and stalked off towards the trees.

“No? James Walsh farmed the perfect potato just last year.”

“Oh, I _see!_ ” O’Malley spun around with a gleam of utter, utter hatred in his eyes. “So that’s what this is all about! Where’s your skeleton, eh? Where’s this so-called curse? Why aren't I currently on fire?”

Saracen observed him silently for a moment, and then sighed. “If you want to catch fire, I suggest stepping inside the burning house. Otherwise, this is your only warning. Drop James Walsh, go back to where you came from, and never darken this part of the woods again.”

“Or what?” O’Malley sneered.

“Or.” Saracen reached up and pulled his hood down. “Fear the wrath of the dreaded potato skeleton.”

James fell to the ground with a hard thud as the large man who was holding him opened his hand and stepped backwards. Everyone else had a similar wide-eyed, open-mouthed expression of terror, except for O’Malley, who was a little too far back from the firelight to tell what was under the deerskin hood. “What you are doing?” he snapped. “What are you - no! Don’t let James get away!”

James, to be perfectly honest, had no intention of going anywhere. He was laughing too hard.

Saracen fixed his eyeless gaze on O’Malley, held out his hand, and snapped his fingers. The flame that flared in his hand wasn’t like the small candle flames he’d managed earlier in the day. It was a fireball. It was a gently levitating stream of real fire floating in his hand, and from certain angles, James knew, it would look like he was breathing it.

O’Malley and his men turned and ran. Their high-pitched screams were really rather comical, as was the occasional shout of ‘It’s the potato skeleton! Run!’ James stared after them, savouring the image for as long as he could, before he returned his attention to Saracen.

Saracen, for his part, was looking at the fire in his hand, like he was debating what to do with it. After a moment, he flattened his palm, and let the flames die out. “I forgot what this was like,” he murmured. “I think I could get used to it.”

James was grinning wildly. “Get used to what?”

"Humour." Saracen paused. “Letting them escape.”

The grin faded, but only slightly. James gingerly stood up, testing out both his legs, before walking over to Saracen and clapping a hand to the skeleton’s shoulder blade. “You did good, Skulduggery. You did good.”

Saracen looked over at James, and James knew he was smiling too. “They’ll be back.”

“Oh, I know. I'm not going to be here. I need to move on with my life, anyway. Look at this place. It’s a pigsty. Nothing left for me here.”

“No, I suppose not.” Saracen shifted slightly to get a better look at James. “Are you alright? They didn’t hurt you?”

James’s left leg was still throbbing, but he could walk on it. And his head would survive. “Yep. I’m golden.” The words ended in a choked cough, and he spluttered before his grin turned sheepish. “Smoke, that's all. Might need a little help getting to Cork, though.”

“Ah, and the ulterior motive reveals itself.”

“Ulterior motive? What, you think I purposely set my own house on fire just to lure you back and get you to take me?”

“I wouldn't put it past you.”

“Why did you come back, anyway?”

“I ran into them on the road,” Skulduggery explained. “They looked shifty.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

“Do you just follow anyone who looks shifty?”

“And now you know why I have trouble in large cities.”

James laughed, long and loud, letting the sound echo in the surrounding trees and fields. He was _alive._ Physically, and emotionally, for the first time in as long as he could remember. “What should I do when I get to Cork, though? I can’t just ignore all…” he gestured towards Skulduggery. “… you. I mean, I’m not going to follow you around, because honestly, I wouldn't be able to stomach it. But is there some sort of job I could do? Something non-magic people can do for sorcerers?”

Skulduggery’s head tilted to the side again. “Non-magic?”

“Yeah. I wouldn't mind being a cook, as long as it means I get to see real magic.”

“No.” Skulduggery shook his head. “Sorcerers only, I’m afraid.”

James sagged. “Yeah, I thought so. I’ll find something else.”

“What do you mean?”

“What do you mean, what do I mean?”

Skulduggery laughed. “There are plenty of jobs for you. You can do magic.”

“Uh.” James frowned. “No, I can’t.”

“How did you get outside the house? Last I saw, they’d nailed the front door shut. They set fire to the house first, the idiots, and one of them burned himself. But you still got out. How?”

James thought about it. “I just… shoved the door open.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I… I shoved, and the door… ”

They both looked around at where the blackened door currently lay, past the porch steps and flattening the grass.

“Hm.” Skulduggery shrugged. “Perhaps I’m wrong, then. No point in finding out, is there?”

A slow, slow smile crept across James’s face. He didn’t say anything else, because there wasn’t a need to, but after a moment he looked properly at Skulduggery. “Hey.”

“Yes?”

“Don’t tell your friends the truth.”

Skulduggery’s head turned towards James with a measure of surprise. “Why not?”

James shrugged uncomfortably. “Because… because I don’t think they’d get it. Just…” He paused. "I just saw the sort of magic you can really do. It’s scary stuff. Sorcerers… they’re scary people. And if you guys don’t stop to think, then… you’ll do stupid stuff. So just don’t tell your friends you went out and killed people. Tell them you’re back, but… don’t tell them where you were.”

“James.”

“No, I’m serious. You’re not going to get any better if you don’t have friends to help you along the way.”

“James, you’re limping.”

“I fell on my foot. I’ll be fine.”

“It might be broken.”

“If it was broken, I wouldn't be able to walk.”

“I've seen much stranger things.”

James nodded. “I’ll bet you have. Why are we wasting time?”

“You don’t need to pack anything?”

“Pack what?” James gestured back towards the burning house. “Fire? You've got all the fire I’m ever going to need.”

“Don’t you need food?”

“Berries. Nuts. Small game. I know these woods like I know the back of my hand, Skulduggery. Berries, nuts, and maybe fish. Any more excuses? No? Then let’s get going.”

His dramatic exit into the woods was made a little less so by his pronounced limp, but James was pretty sure it looked dramatic enough. Besides, the limp made it possible for Saracen to catch up with James despite him not stopping. 

He had no idea what he would do when he got to Cork. He had no idea what sort of magic he was going to learn, if he would even learn any, or what he would do with it. He and Saracen – he and _Skulduggery_ – would most likely part ways once they arrived. He’d be on his own.

And yet, James never felt as wonderfully purposeful as he did just then.


	15. Purple Satin Suits

The back room of the pub was empty when Ghastly walked in. There was a table in the middle, surrounded by chairs, with a stone fireplace in one corner and not much else. Not so much as a painting on a wall. Bare, simple, and functional. That was all a secret sorcerers’ meeting place really needed to be. Some weren't, of course, but this one was, and Ghastly felt perfectly at home as he dragged one of the chairs over into a corner and sat down.

He wasn’t surprised to be the first one there. He hadn't been in contact with the rest of the Dead Men for over a month. Partly deliberately; he and Corrival had agreed that Ghastly needed some time off. He hadn't needed to cut off _all_ contact, but Ghastly personally believed that was for the best. He made a lot of nice suits with his time off. Nice suits he otherwise wouldn't have made, if he knew where his friends were and could do nothing but worry over their safety the whole time.

Not that he didn’t worry over their safety anyway, but it was the principle of the thing.

Rover’s voice was the first one Ghastly heard, faintly through the door. “Look, I’m telling you. If they’d just attacked when they were supposed to, we could have gotten all the way in. We wouldn't have been stuck in a room that was flooding. I'm not saying I didn't appreciate all our clothes soaking, but a little bit of _warning_ would have been nice."

Then Erskine’s voice. “Who wants to bet that’s why Corrival wants us all here?”

“What, to lecture us? _Just_ to lecture us? I’ll take that bet.”

“What did we do that's worth lecturing us about?” That one was Dexter. “We couldn't have distracted them from _us._ There’s only so much we can do on our own. Why would Corrival blame us? Descry, why would Corrival blame us?”

“He doesn't.”

“Then why – ”

“I don’t know.” The door opened. “I haven't seen him yet. Hello, Ghastly.”

Descry, as per usual, didn't sound even slightly surprised, as Ghastly raised his hand in a friendly wave. The others, on the other hand, were a different story. _“Ghastly!?”_ Dexter burst into the room behind Descry, a grin on his face that couldn't possibly have been there just a second before. “ _Ghastly...!_ What on _earth_ are you doing here?”

“It’s good to see you too, Dex.”

“Don’t you dare, Ghastly, not after the month we just had. I have the right to be scatterbrained. What have you been doing with yourself? Can we each look forward to a new suit?”

“Just tell me you made Anton something less black,” Rover added, a grin of his own almost splitting his face. “Something with some blue in it, what do you think? Or pink? Anton, what would you think about a bright pink suit?”

Anton was the last one inside the room, and the only one not wearing a smile. Instead, he was shaking his head. “Please tell me you didn’t, Ghastly. It would be a waste of your talents.”

Ghastly smiled. “I didn’t. On the contrary, it's bright purple.”

Rover burst out laughing, and dragged one of the other chairs over next to Ghastly's against the wall. "The royal colour. Of course." He spun the chair in a dramatic flourish, sank into it, and immediately reached over to massage the back of Ghastly's shoulders. "Tell me it has frills and lacing. And bright white buttons, all down the front. Satin lining. Purple satin lining."

"Not satin lining, I'm afraid. Do you have any idea how expensive satin is?"

"What else would you need the money for?"

"Food."

"What would you need _food_ for? We're talking about the chance to make Anton wear purple satin, Bespoke. You need to make sacrifices for the good of the unit. It's expected of you."

"I will leave this unit," Anton said flatly.

Erskine put an arm around the Gist-user's shoulders. "We won't let you. If it makes you feel better, Dexter and I would probably put on purple suits right next to you. We'll steal everyone's attention away from you."

Dexter nodded solemnly to confirm this, and Rover glanced up. "Hey. No one steals attention away from my Anton."

"Isn't that all we ever do?" Dexter wondered. "Isn't that the point? Rover, don't you _want_ all the attention to be stolen by your husband? I think I should be insulted."

"Dexter, if you stole everyone's attention, I would be unforgivably jealous."

"Are you implying that I _don't_ steal everyone's attention?"

"Are you implying that I'm not unforgivably jealous?"

It never seemed to matter how long the group went without seeing each other. They always picked up right where they left off as if no time had passed whatsoever. It was another five minutes before Corrival joined them, but there wasn’t a second of silence in between. The silence only started when Corrival arrived, and seemed to be trying to make up for that fact, because it stretched on for quite a while before Corrival finally broke it. “Ghastly, thank you for joining us.”

Ghastly nodded once. “My pleasure, sir.”

“If you wouldn't mind, we could really use you again.”

He’d suspected that. He’d resigned himself to it. Everyone was sick of the war, but not everyone was refusing to fight in it. Ghastly couldn't spend the rest of the war on the sidelines if there was any hope whatsoever of finishing it. Skulduggery would have been disappointed in him. “I’m here now, sir.”

“Good. Consider yourself officially reinstated. Gentlemen, there’s something serious we need to discuss.”

“It wasn’t our fault,” Rover insisted. Not for the first time, and probably not for the last time.

“What wasn’t your fault?”

“That! That… failure. It wasn’t our fault. We needed a distraction." He stopped, confused. "Descry said you knew that.”

“I’m not talking about the mission. Forget about the mission.” Corrival hesitated, looking around at them all. “But now that we’re on the subject, what happened with the mission?”

“Sir.” Dexter put one hand against his forehead in a mocking version of a salute. “The men who were supposed to provide a distraction must have been caught with their drawers around their ankles, because I can’t think of another reason for their utter failure to – ”

“They were attacked. Barely escaped with their lives. If they could've been there, believe me, they would have been. Are we clear?”

Dexter was stunned into silence, but all Rover could do was laugh. “Caught with their drawers around their ankles, Dex?”

“It was possible,” he muttered.

“Was it? Or were you just hopeful? Should I be jealous?”

“Probably not. I wouldn't have been anywhere near them.”

“Wishing you were the mind-reader?”

“If I was, would you be jealous then?”

“All right, all right.” Corrival, who Ghastly could have sworn was more amused than he was letting on, ended the jokes in the same gruff way he usually did. “Which one of you clowns was in Cork last week?”

Rover raised an eyebrow. “Cork? Why would any of us be in Cork? There’s nothing to do there.”

“Speak for yourself,” Dexter disagreed. “There were lots of lovely young ladies when I was there, all bored of the locals on offer. I guess that must have included you.”

Rover sneered. “And how long did it take them to grow bored of you?”

Dexter gasped. “I’m offended! Bored? Of me? No one ever grows bored of me.”

“I did,” Anton interjected. “Within the first few days.”

“Yes, but are you a lovely young lady from Cork?”

"'Put him in some purple satin...'" said Descry, his voice trailing off on an expectant note.

Rover gave him an annoyed look. "'And you wouldn't be able to tell the difference.' Stop stealing my jokes, Descry."

"You weren't going to say it," Descry pointed out with a smile. Anton, for his part, merely grunted.

“But when were you in Cork?” Erskine asked Dexter, puzzled. “When did you find the time? It’s a week’s travel, and you've definitely been here longer than that.” He shrugged. “Unless the lovely young ladies from Cork were bored of you within hours.”

Rover laughed, while Dexter went a shade of red very reminiscent of his version of the character Saracen Rue. “I was last there _years_ ago, _sirs._ None of us could have been there last week. We've all been here. You know, fighting a war. And failing missions miserably.”

“Then explain to me,” said Corrival, “how someone called Saracen Rue was in Cork last week.”

The words drew silence from everyone, and a frown from Ghastly. Saracen Rue was a name well-known, like every other name within the Dead Men, but the true nature of his existence was known only to the Dead Men. Even Meritorious believed Corrival had done some recruiting of his own, partly due to one of the many little white lies Descry had begun telling him.

When no one spoke, Corrival looked at Descry. The mind-reader looked steadily back, and shook his head.

A chill ran down Ghastly’s spine. Saracen Rue, sighted a week away from Dublin, and it couldn't have been any of the Dead Men. Someone outside their group had discovered the secret – or at least suspected enough to pretend to be him. Why? To throw the Dead Men off their guard? The silence told Ghastly how well that was working.

“What did he look like?” asked Dexter.

“No one could say. He kept his hood up. If it wasn’t any of you, he’s had plenty of time to travel all the way here, and if whoever it is knows that Rue isn't real, then they likely also know that Skulduggery has been dead for the last five years. That puts the rest of you in danger.”

Saracen Rue was a character construct that Rover had been sporting when he and Anton first encountered the Dead Men. Officially, Saracen Rue _was_ a member of the Dead Men. The idea had been that if the Dead Men were never all seen together, no one would dare try to assassinate them - leaving even one Dead Man alive was as good as committing suicide. Rue had eventually become a character that each and every Dead Men became, at one point or another, both to fool others and to apologise for something they'd done. _Rue._ It meant regret. Dexter was the first to use it that way, in an effort to get both Anton and Rover to forgive him for almost releasing Anton's Gist.

Saracen Rue was also a flamboyantly homosexual English ponce, and the idea that anyone pretending to be him would wear a _hood_...

“If they’re really out to kill all of us at once, why let themselves be seen in Cork?” Erskine wondered. “Saracen Rue. If he was wearing a disguise, he would have had to introduce himself, and to sorcerers, no less. Either we’re missing something here, or this man is the worst assassin in the world.”

Rover raised his hand. “Can we go with worst assassin? That would make me feel a lot better.”

“Why are we assuming assassin?” Anton piped up from the corner of the room, where he’d settled against the wall next to Ghastly and Rover.

“You may not have noticed, Anton, my good man, my well-mannered friend, but we – as a group – have made a weathered ton of enemies. And every single one of them would dearly love to kill us."

Anton gave Rover a silent, but pointed, look. “That doesn't immediately mean this man’s an assassin. If they _wanted_ word to reach us, maybe they just have a message. Perhaps they need help. Maybe the choice of name to take on is a coincidence.”

“Saracen Rue?” said Dexter. “ _Specifically_ Saracen Rue? The only one of us who _doesn't actually exist?_ Not bloody likely.”

“We can talk and we can theorise as much as we want,” Corrival cut in, stopping any chance of a reply, “but it doesn't change the fact that someone out there is flaunting their intimate knowledge of us, and until we find out who it is and why they’re doing it, we’re going to proceed with caution. Ghastly, can you reach any of Skulduggery’s old informants?”

The tailor considered for a moment, arms crossed and head bowed. “I think so, yes.”

_Saracen Rue, a week away from Dublin, wearing a disguise so no one can see his face._ There was a part of Ghastly's mind, a part that had never truly accepted Skulduggery's second death, which was now furiously trying to grab his attention. Ghastly deliberately ignored it.

“Make a list," said Corrival. "Each of you take a few names. We need to know the instant this Rue reaches Dublin, and we need to know exactly _where._ ” 

The usual murmurs of affirmation filtered through the group. Ghastly took a deep breath to steady his nerves, and noticed Descry raise his head to look at him. Ghastly met the mind-reader’s gaze without faltering, then stood up and was the first to leave the room. 

Descry, as per usual, said nothing.


	16. Lost and Found

“Skulduggery, eh?” The barkeeper fixed Erskine with a baleful eye over the counter. “How do I know you really knew him?”

“Are you joking?” Erskine asked, dumbfounded. “You've never heard of the Dead Men?”

The barkeeper thought about that, his eyes never leaving Erskine’s face, and then he shrugged. “Doesn't matter if I have or not. Skulduggery’s never told me about you himself. Can’t trust what I've heard from strangers.”

“You,” said Erskine, “are a frustratingly stubborn man. How much is it going to take to change your mind?”

“Hey, I liked Skulduggery. Gonna take an awful lot to make me betray his trust.”

Erskine nodded. “Of course, of course. Let’s just ignore the fact that if it weren't for me and my very powerful friends, this pub would likely have burned down six years ago, along with the rest of Dublin. Let’s ignore that if Mevolent ever won, you would be dead or enslaved, but you’re perfectly happy to leave all the fighting to people like me and my powerful friends. Let’s ignore that Skulduggery gave his life for the war you won’t fight in, _twice_ over, and that if you don’t tell me what I want to know, someone may well murder me and my powerful friends tonight in our beds, leaving much of Ireland defenceless, including _your pub._ ”

His tone never went above friendly, but Erskine did slowly lean further over the counter with each sentence, and he did accentuate certain words, and it was having an interesting effect on the barkeeper. His eyes steadily widened until they threatened to bulge out of his head, and when Erskine finished, he held his hands up like a gun was being pointed at him. “Alright! Alright. You've made your point. What was the question?”

“Have you heard of anyone called Saracen Rue arriving in Dublin recently?” 

“Arriving in Dublin?” The barkeep raised his eyebrows at Erskine, and a funny sort of half-smile settled on his face. “Forget that. A man calling himself Saracen Rue came into the pub ten minutes ago. He’s sitting over there.”

Erskine froze. Instinct kicked in, and even though he’d only glanced at each of the faces in the pub before heading over to the counter, they each appeared vividly in his mind in the few split seconds he potentially had. Ten of them, each a definite face, none of them with a hood up. He needed more information. “Over where?”

“Corner furthest from here. There’s a guy with him. Didn't get his name.”

The one corner Erskine didn’t happen to glance at on his way in. He was getting lax. He had no back-up, and there was a potential assassin out there – he should have taken the _basic_ precautions. 

He wasn’t expecting to see anyone in that corner when he turned around, because assassins rarely stayed in one place too long, and never within sight of their target. But he did. A man wearing what looked like a sack cloak, with the hood up, talking with another man who had just pushed himself up to his feet. Erskine watched as the uncloaked man exchanged a few last words with Rue, smiled, and then looked straight over at Erskine himself. A moment or two passed, the man tipped his weather-beaten hat, and then hobbled out the front door on a wooden crutch.

The cloaked man took the opportunity to slip out through the back unnoticed. Or tried to, but didn’t know Erskine Ravel well enough to know that trying to be inconspicuous would never work. Erskine let him have a few seconds’ head start, and then followed him through the door into the back alley. “Hey!”

Rue didn’t run, once again surprising Erskine. In fact, he turned, and held his ground, and folded his arms. “That took you long enough.”

“Excuse me?”

“Really, Erskine. I gave all of you a week’s notice. A _week._ I expected to run into a patrol miles from Dublin. I’m disappointed.”

Something in Erskine’s shoulders tensed. He wanted to object. He meant to object. But there was something about the man’s voice, something in the high and nasal tones they all associated with the character of Saracen Rue by now, that rang just a little bit deeper. “Who are you?”

“Now I’m simply offended. You know who I am. That barkeeper told you.”

“That barkeeper told me you called yourself Saracen Rue.”

“That must be who I am, then.”

“Saracen Rue is a character. A construct.”

“Is he?”

“He’s completely made-up.”

“I’ll have to take your word for it.”

“Who are you?” Erskine snapped. The resemblance to the Saracen Rue they’d all pretended to be was uncanny, and it was unsettling him. “Take off your hood.”

“Absolutely not.”

“ _Take off your hood_.”

“I don’t exist merely to pander to the whims of any stranger I come across in a pub.”

“Stranger? A minute ago you were calling me Erskine.”

“Lucky guess.”

Erskine decided to try a different tack. “ _Why_ are you calling yourself Saracen Rue?”

That stumped him. Or at least, it made him go quiet – it was difficult to tell why, with the hood still up. Erskine waited as patiently as he could, but the man made no sign he was going to say anything else. He didn’t move. He barely seemed to breathe. It was unnatural.

He was unnaturally still.

“Well,” the man finally started saying, and his words were suddenly the loudest, most important thing in the world. “For the same reason Dexter first decided to become someone else. For the same reason the tradition continued at all. Because there’s something to apologise for, something far too important to leave to words or deeds or unspoken forgiveness.” Rue’s voice changed, growing lower and smoother. “I have something I need to apologise for, and it’s far too important to leave to words or deeds or unspoken forgiveness. Becoming Rue is… the first step to take.”

Erskine’s voice, in comparison, seemed very small. “Skulduggery?”

“No. Haven’t you been listening?”

The world was spinning. Spinning, and blurring. Erskine had to make a conscious effort just to remain upright and cogent. “What happened to you?”

“That’s… a long story.”

“Take off your hood.”

“That’s not – ”

“We’re in an alley. There’s no one to see you. Please. Take off your hood.”

Rue’s head tilted, and for a moment Erskine thought he was going to argue again. But the cloaked man didn’t say anything, and eventually he reached up with gloved hands to pull the hood off his gleaming white skull.

Minutes passed without either of them saying anything. Erskine wasn’t sure what he was waiting for; maybe for Rue to say something, or do something? In which case, what was Rue waiting for? If he was waiting for _Erskine_ to say or do something, which he most likely was, then they were at an eternal impasse. Erskine had no idea how to break eternal impasses. His head was still spinning.

The world moved around him, his feet started taking steps forward without prior consent, and before Erskine knew it, he had his arms around the cloaked skeleton. “You,” he finally managed in a voice choked with emotion, “are an idiot.”

“So I've been told.”

“What the hell are you apologising for?”

“The last five years.”

“You _idiot._ I’m buying you make-up.”

There was a nearly delicate pause before Rue physically shifted his skeletal frame against Erskine. “I’m sorry, you’re what?”

“Buying you make-up. And a wig. Proper upper-class uniform. If you’re going to take on Saracen Rue, you have to do it properly. Rover would be ashamed otherwise. What else? A cane. Cane, wig, make-up, clothes. Where the _hell_ have you been?”

“I’m… sure I remembered just a few seconds ago.”

Erskine’s hug tightened. “We've needed you.”

“I know.”

“We still need you.”

“I know.”

“Ghastly’s going to go completely nuts when he sees you.”

Erskine couldn't see the smile, but he could hear it in Rue’s next words. “I know.”

~~

Ghastly was dreaming.

He had to be.

The first time Skulduggery had come back from the dead, Ghastly had been paralyzed in much the same way, and for many of the same reasons. Disbelief. Relief. Confusion. Fear. Overwhelming joy. An overabundance of each, and with absolutely no clue which feeling to start at. They all took up too much room to even start picking them apart.

Skulduggery – no, Rue – no, _Skulduggery_ – had his head tilted to the side. He wasn’t saying a word. Probably trying to give Ghastly the courtesy of asking the first question, which would have worked fine if Ghastly could remember exactly how English worked. He suspected he would have sounded rather silly if he tried just then.

After a very long and very awkward silence, Skulduggery shifted slightly. “I’m sorry about your mother.”

“Not your fault,” Ghastly murmured. “I doubt it would have happened differently if you were there.”

Something about Skulduggery's demeanour changed. Ghastly was likely the only one who noticed, and even he couldn't quite put his finger on it. Something small. Skulduggery’s skeletal frame hadn't moved even a centimetre, but something about the way he held himself did. Like… well, like he was hanging his head. Like he’d _flinched._

He was really going to blame himself for this, wasn’t he?

Ghastly snapped himself out of it and took a step forward. “It _wasn’t your fault_ ,” he reiterated slowly. “I don’t care why you left or where you were. You couldn't have known, you idiot.”

“Vile – ”

“ – is not your responsibility. Not everything in the world is.”

“We were actually under the impression that he’d killed you,” Erskine spoke up. “Consulted a Sensitive and everything. Anyone know why she lied to us?”

“She didn’t lie to us, necessarily,” said Anton. Apart from Erskine and now Ghastly, he seemed to be the only one who’d managed any semblance of recovery from Skulduggery’s arrival. “She didn’t know any more than we did. That was just the conclusion she came to.”

“We should get our money back,” Rover muttered.

“It’s possible that Vile’s sheer power drowned out anything to do with someone who was already dead.”

“That, or get those free palm readings I wanted.”

Erskine shook his head. “But what if she was right? What if Skulduggery did die again? If anyone could be capable of that, it would be Vile.”

“Do you think she’d let us have a pile of those little dream whisperers?” Rover wondered.

“Why don’t you ask Skulduggery?” said Anton. "He's right there."

“Or maybe bagfuls? We could burn them when it gets cold at night.”

“I tried,” said Erskine. “He won’t tell me anything. He specifically _said_ he wasn’t going to tell us anything. He’s really sorry about it, though. Whatever it is.”

“Do dream whisperers burn?”

“I’m going to take him into town tomorrow and buy him make-up. Make-up and a wig and a cane. We’re going to do this whole thing properly. Dexter, want to help?”

Dexter made a noise somewhere between a laugh and some sort of choking sob, and didn’t respond. Ghastly looked over at him. His face was pale, but he was smiling, eyes lit up with the same overwhelming joy that Ghastly felt, somewhere underneath the layers of confusion. 

“Do you think," said Rover, "that she’d curse us if we tried to burn all her dream whisperers?”

“Am I invited as well?” asked Anton.

Erskine gasped as dramatically as he’d ever managed. “Of _course_ you’re invited! Everyone’s invited! In fact, we should all do the same thing. Meritorious is debriefing us tomorrow, isn't he? Corrival, permission to act like idiots?”

Corrival snapped out of his reverie at the question. “You most certainly do _not_ have permission.”

“Permission to at least behave like we’re taking the whole thing seriously, then?”

Corrival shook his head. “While you’re all wearing mounds of make-up and curly wigs?” He sighed. “Be my guest.”

“What if she gave us the dream whisperers as a gift, free of charge, and we burned them then? Is it disrespectful if they’re technically ours?” 

“Rover, do you need a minute?” Erskine asked, addressing the man’s one-sided conversation for the first time. 

“Who, me? No. Never. What are we talking about? Invited where?”

Descry’s mouth twitched, a fact Ghastly noticed absentmindedly, as his stare had never left Skulduggery’s face. Or the equivalent of his face, in that forever-grinning skull Ghastly thought he'd never see again. What sort of thoughts was Hopeless picking up? The conversation had faded from Ghastly’s attention, as Rover was brought up to speed by both Erskine and Anton, but he could imagine the jokes flying back and forth. The silent ones, known only to Descry, as well as the spoken ones. 

Skulduggery stepped over towards Ghastly to leave the rest of the Dead Men to it. “You’re not going to faint on me, are you?”

Ghastly felt his shoulders jerk with the surprise. It wasn’t Skulduggery’s voice. It was Rue’s. Saracen Rue, the construct Skulduggery had vowed never to stoop to, and with just a little bit of make-up or a painted mask, Ghastly could imagine standing right there. “You what?”

“Faint. On me. I’m all skin and bones, you know. Wouldn't be able to carry your weight. I shouldn't have to, either. Have you let yourself go since I left?”

In spite of absolutely everything, Ghastly felt offence creeping into the medley of his feelings. “I have not.”

“Really? You could have fooled me. When’s the last time you ran anywhere?”

Ghastly resisted the urge to hit Skulduggery. To hit Saracen. The urge, however, made him want to smile, and he resisted that too. It was so long since he’d properly felt anything, and here his best friend was, making him want to hit him. “My mother is dead, you ignorant cad.”

“So is mine. You don’t see me letting myself go.”

“You?” Ghastly reached out and gripped Skulduggery’s arm, raising it level. “You don’t have even a hint of muscle. I recall muscles, the last time you spoke to your mother.”

“I was _killed,_ you ignorant cad. You stole all my muscles. That’s hardly fair.”

“I can return them, if you’d like.”

“Is that a _threat?_ ” Rue’s high-pitched and entitled tone of voice practically squeaked. Ghastly had to work not to burst out laughing. “Are you _threatening_ me? After I left on a personal sabbatical that was, I don’t mind telling you, all _kinds_ of hell, you’re _threatening_ me? See if I ever come back again! If all I can look forward to is this sort of treatment, I can quite easily take my business and my considerable skill elsewhere, you see if I don’t – ”

He cut himself off when Ghastly hugged him, trying to stifle a bout of laughter into the hood of the cloak behind Saracen’s skull. “You don’t need to do this, Skul.”

Skulduggery didn’t reply. He did, however, after a moment’s pause, hug Ghastly back. 

“And I’m not the first person you thought of?” Rover’s voice faded back into Ghastly’s awareness, full of pretend offence. “I used to be a performer, remember? If any of us is qualified to put make-up on a skull, I think it would be me. It wouldn't even be my first time doing it.”

“It wouldn't?”

“Well, it would be my first time putting it on a skull that can talk _back._ That should be interesting.” 

“He’s doing the voice,” said Dexter. His grin had only broadened over time, and he was staring openly at Skulduggery with a proud sort of awe. “He’s doing the _voice._ Can you all hear him? Isn't it the most beautiful voice you've ever heard?”

“I knew it.” Rover shook his head. “I knew introducing you to a living skeleton would be a bad idea. You’re leaving me for him, aren't you?”

“Hm.” Dexter pretended to consider it. “Well, he is very impressive. But he wouldn't be very fun to cuddle. Don’t worry, Larrikin dear, I only have arms for you.”

“Skulduggery.” Corrival’s voice had taken on its commanding edge again, which was pretty much the only thing that would have broken Ghastly’s hug. “Am I correct in believing that no matter what I threaten you with, you’re not going to tell us where you were?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’d really rather never think about it again.”

Corrival considered him with a calculating look, but then – probably due to his extensive experience by then – let the matter drop. “In that case, I’m treating the last five years as your vacation time, and officially reinstating you as of now, no objections.”

“I’d expect nothing less, sir.”

“Good. Now then. I believe this solves the mystery of Saracen Rue. Unless anyone had anything else they wanted to discuss, nothing further until the debriefing tomorrow morning.”

Dexter raised his hand. “Sir.”

“Yes?”

“Just want to point out that we’re a full unit again. Sir.”

Dexter’s hand dropped back to his side, leaving absolute silence in the room. Even Corrival didn’t speak right away. Dexter had a point. These past five years, while the Dead Men operated with their usual efficiency and discretion, remaining Meritorious’s most valuable asset in the war, something had felt wrong. Something in their performance had dipped. Everyone had noticed it, but no one ever mentioned it, because the death of a fellow soldier wasn’t something you mentioned. Particularly when they were all as close as they had once been.

But now, they were a full unit again. Impossibly, miraculously, Skulduggery had come back, and their family was complete again. They could all be as close as they once were. The sense of it, the feeling of completeness and fellowship, permeated the room like nothing else. 

It was, of course, Corrival who broke the spell. “Thank you for pointing out the obvious, Vex,” he grunted in his usual tone. Only the note of like-minded nostalgia in his voice betrayed that he didn’t mean one sarcastic word of the sentence. “Anything else?”

“I don’t think so, sir.”

Corrival nodded. “Then you’re all dismissed.”

“Grab him!” Rover called to Ghastly. “Don’t let him get away! We’re all going shopping whether he wants to or not!”

Ghastly made a very deliberate gesture of taking Skulduggery’s arm, which hadn't moved a centimetre because Skulduggery himself hadn't moved a centimetre. “Got him,” the tailor answered flatly. “He won’t get away this time.”

“Oh, drat,” said Skulduggery just as flatly, but in Rue's nasally high English accent. “There go all my plans for the rest of the afternoon.” He heaved a sigh. “Very well. Do with me what you must, you simple-minded cretins. Tally-ho.”


	17. The Dead Men Reunite (or, alternatively, Shenanigans Ensue)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I do not apologise for this in any way, shape, or form. Just in case anyone was wondering.

Corrival hadn't seriously expected them to go through with their plan.

He really, really should have. 

They were late to the debriefing, which wasn’t like them, and had been worrying Corrival since Meritorious started talking. Meritorious hadn't seemed to notice – or didn’t let it stop him if he had. Corrival stood by him and tried his very best to pay attention, but there was a dark and foreboding and _distracting_ feeling located somewhere at the bottom of his gut.

A few minutes later, the reason for that gut feeling made itself suddenly and spectacularly known.

The door to the large room opened. The Dead Men walked inside. They were quiet, and as subtle as they could possibly be, and not a single face turned towards their entrance. Except for Meritorious’s. And for the very first time in Corrival’s considerably long memory, the de facto leader of the rebellion faltered.

They’d never made it officially known that Skulduggery was gone. Some had figured it out for themselves – people like China. Meritorious had always known, but it wasn’t the appearance of Skulduggery that made him falter. Rather, it was Skulduggery’s _appearance._

Heads were turning towards them now, curious about Meritorious’s pause. Corrival’s was the only one not to join them. His own head had turned down towards the ground and met his palm, while a stress headache pounded somewhere down at the bottom of his skull. He’d never hoped he was dreaming before, and he certainly didn’t start now. For one thing, for one very _important_ thing, he would never have dreamed about the seven soldiers under his command showing up at a debriefing in full, over-the-top, stark theatre make-up.

“Don’t mind us,” Rover told the room at large with an airy wave of his hand. “Sorry we’re late, Eachan, sir. Please continue.”

Rover Larrikin actually looked the least ridiculous of the lot of them, given that he was the one most used to wearing mounds of make-up. Corrival guessed it was because Rover was the one who did everyone else’s make-up. Maybe he didn’t have enough time or make-up left for himself, or maybe he’d just run out of energy by that point. Either way, he simply looked the part of the lifetime performer, unusual only for anyone who had never seen an actor outside of a show. Which, of course, was probably most of the people here.

Skulduggery was too bizarre for words. New suit, which was barely even a _suit;_ there was a ruffled shirt underneath a waistcoat on top of pinstriped trousers, an outfit that Ghastly would most certainly not have approved. It was topped with the powdered wig of a high court justice, with heavily affected curls bouncing down onto the skeleton’s shoulders around the shirt ruffles, leaving only a small space for the face of his skull. 

A small space, but a space still big enough to see that his entire skull was painted in the manner of a Japanese geisha.

It was, apparently, possible for a skull to become even whiter. Or maybe Skulduggery’s had just grown yellow with age. Either way, it was now blindingly white, pure as the driven snow, like glazed porcelain. His large eye sockets must have been difficult to work around, since the eyes of a geisha were usually painted long and narrow, but Rover had managed it nonetheless. The effect made Skulduggery look incredibly surprised, with eyes much too big for his face and black brows that rose comically up onto his cranium. His teeth, on the other hand, were painted with enough layers of blood-red to make the individual teeth nearly indiscernible. It looked, God help Corrival, exactly like a pair of lips. They even contained the shine of lipstick, painstakingly added by Rover to complete the effect. The hollow where Skulduggery’s nose would have been wasn’t left alone either; they’d somehow filled it up, and painted it the same glaring white as the rest of the skull, and outlined a living nose with shades of black and grey. On his left cheekbone was a minute little painting of a rose, and on his right cheekbone were three hearts with an arrow piercing them all in turn. 

He was also carrying a cane. An expensive, gold-tipped cane. Which he now brandished with an over-the-top flourish, as if he was already bored with the proceedings, which when combined with the large startling eyes… well, painted a picture much too bizarre for words.

And that was just the living skeleton.

Dexter, in place of his usual Bespoke-tailored leathers, was wearing a wedding dress. A very exquisite wedding dress, one he’d probably stolen if he hadn't conjured it. The dress had a long white train that trailed after him out into the hall, and none of the other Dead Men were holding it for him. A sheer veil covered almost half of his face, the other half of which was done up the way any young daughter of a nobleman would have wanted. Dexter looked – there was no other word for it – _pretty._ The way he walked even suggested tall high-heeled shoes underneath the gown of the wedding dress. It was only after seeing the wedding dress that Corrival realized Rover was wearing the same sort of tuxedo he’d been wearing during their so-called ‘wedding party’ years ago, and that was when Corrival stopped trying to think.

Meritorious had his face in his hands. Corrival didn’t say anything. There wasn’t a single thing he _could_ say.

Descry’s face was lined. Not from stress, or from a lack of sleep, but from age. He looked like he’d aged over ninety mortal years overnight. He was walking with a stoop in his back, leaning heavily on a cane only slightly less gaudy than Skulduggery’s, and dressed like a rich nobleman otherwise. He was dressed exactly like the father figure caricature from Commedia dell’Arte – the one who was stingy beyond all reason, didn’t spend a single cent of his money, and most importantly, never seemed to understand a word anyone said to him. The stark contrast between the traditionally oblivious character and the mind-reader Corrival had come to know almost physically hurt. In keeping with that character, Descry’s cheeks were bright red from an imagined exertion and his brows were heavily exaggerated to sit in a permanent frown.

Ghastly’s scars, far from being hidden, were enhanced – emboldened to the point of making him look like a rotting zombie. Rover had even painted little droplets of blood, bloodshot eyes, and outlined the blue veins under his skin to make him look dead. Next to him was Anton, a wig on backwards to make it look like black hair covered his face, werewolf in every aspect apart from the desire to rip apart everyone in the room. And Erskine stood beside him, wearing a red cloak with a hood to hide his features and carrying a basket, looking for all the world exactly like Little Red Riding Hood from Grimm’s fairy tales.

Erskine met Corrival’s carefully composed blank gaze, and brightened, and brought out a small bun from his basket. “Fancy a biscuit, General Deuce?”

“Eachan,” said Corrival quietly. “I’d like you to know that I didn’t have the slightest inkling they were actually going to follow through with this ridiculous idea.” He hesitated. “But, in their defence, Skulduggery did just get back yesterday.”

He could allow them all some leeway in acting the fool, so long as no one actually introduced Skulduggery as Rue and blew the ruse apart.

Meritorious didn’t answer. Corrival looked over and saw, to his surprise, that the old sorcerer’s shoulders were shaking in silent laughter. Oh. Well, probably not in _that_ much trouble, then.

Descry’s face twitched and he stumbled, but Skulduggery and Ghastly were immediately on either side of him, keeping him upright. The mind-reader was obviously having trouble, but he was remaining impressively level despite that. Very impressively level. Laughter was starting to ripple throughout the room, but aside from the single violent twitch of his face right before he stumbled, Descry’s face was every bit as blank as the others. The strength had left his body completely, leaving Skulduggery and Ghastly to practically carry him. It was impressively convincing, actually, how in control Descry seemed to be. Corrival only knew how much trouble he was having because he knew the man. Meritorious would be able to tell as well, if he could stop laughing for a second.

Or maybe that was _why_ he couldn't stop laughing.

The whole room was applauding as Skulduggery and Ghastly carefully led Descry over to a chair. Corrival couldn't imagine what reading minds in this room must be like. He imagined Descry’s face red as a lobster, even under the make-up. That was probably why they’d put red foundation on his cheeks, come to think of it. Meritorious raised a hand to stop the laughter in the room, but since he was still doubled over and laughing himself, it had very little effect. Corrival thought about trying to help, tried to remember the last time he’d seen Meritorious laugh so openly, and decided that debriefings could probably wait for one more day. Or at least for a few more hours.

“Do you hear something?” asked Rover, looking about the room, his eyes sliding over anyone who was actually laughing. “I could have sworn I heard something just there. A chuckle. A titter. Possibly even a guffaw.”

“Something’s gone wrong with your hearing, my dear,” said Dexter, wrapping an arm around the waist of his ‘husband.’ “The room’s completely silent. I think we've stunned them all.”

“Oh dear,” said Erskine. “Maybe we should go back out and try this again. Maybe we should lead with a scare. Anton, grunt.”

Anton grunted.

“Excellent. You and Ghastly should work perfectly.”

‘Why am I always the scary one?” Ghastly complained. “Why can’t I, for once, be the funny one?”

“We went over this. You look like you could snap someone’s head off.”

‘I _have_ snapped someone’s head off.”

“Exactly!”

Ghastly might have scowled. It was difficult to tell, since he’d been scowling the whole time. “Next time, I want to be the clown.”

“Nope! Can’t do it,” sang Rover. “I’m already the clown.”

“You? You’re wearing a tuxedo.”

“I’m a very serious clown. I’m a no-funny-business clown. I’m Corrival.”

The Dead Men were the only people in the room who weren't laughing. Corrival stepped past the helpless Meritorious and dismissed everyone who was, brooking absolutely no objections – which was easy, as there weren't any. Just scattered appreciation for breaking up the meeting, or for turning a tense day into a more manageable one. Everyone filed out in a semi-orderly fashion, a few people here and there calling out their _approval_ of the spectacle. Corrival marked each and every one of them, so he could have Words with them later. One of the older sorcerers touched Dexter on the arm, congratulating him once more on his wedding, and asking if the happy couple had made use of his wedding present yet. Dexter could be heard replying that no, they hadn't, because neither of them knew how to farm – to which Rover cut in and said that didn’t mean they hadn't _used_ the wagon plow, just that they hadn't used it for its intended purpose, and the sorcerer who’d asked probably – no, _definitely_ – didn’t want it back.

Corrival caught Rover’s eye, and raised an eyebrow. All he got was a shrug in return.

The moment the room was empty, the _moment_ Anton closed the door after the last person, Descry broke. His unbridled laughter joined Meritorious’s, and became annoyingly infectious. It wasn’t long before the rest of the Dead Men had joined in, even Skulduggery, and… well. How was Corrival meant to stand stoic against all of that?

He wasn’t, that was how.

Barely a moment later, Erskine had frozen and stared. “Skulduggery?”

It took the skeleton a while to regain his composure. When he did, he pulled the high court justice wig off, and unbuttoned both the waistcoat and the frilly shirt. “Yes, Erskine?”

“Are you laughing?”

It was a sobering comment. Suddenly, everyone but Descry and Meritorious was following suit, pulling off wigs and hoods and top hats and bridal veils, and all eyes were turning to Skulduggery. He wound his wig around the head of his cane, seemingly oblivious to the stares, and then he gave a very deliberate shrug. “Yes, I suppose I am. Why?”

“What do you mean, _why_?”

“Why shouldn't I be laughing?”

“That’s a joke. You’re joking, right?”

“Of course he was joking,” Rover cut in. “Didn't you see the telltale grin on his face?”

“It’s such a nice laugh,” said Dexter longingly. “I don’t remember it being that nice. Have we ever heard it before?”

“You know,” said Rover, “I don’t think we have. We need to fix that. Skulduggery, you need to laugh more often. On command, if possible. Whenever I say ‘poop,’ you must laugh. Poop.”

“What _did_ happen during those five years?” asked Anton curiously.

“Clearly, he went out and found himself a nice girl to teach him how to laugh. I said _poop_.”

Dexter grinned. “Why, Skulduggery, have you been holding out on us?”

“Yes,” Skulduggery answered in a tone that redefined the word ‘deadpan.’ “I went out and found myself a nice girl to teach me how to laugh.”

The fact that he looked like an eternally surprised Japanese geisha as he said it was doing absolutely nothing to help Corrival retain his _own_ composure. It certainly didn’t help Descry regain his.

“See, _that_ sounds more like the Skulduggery we know.” Rover folded his arms. “I don’t like it. Men, we have a new mission. From now on, I will give a shiny new tuppence to anyone who manages to make Skulduggery laugh.”

“Really?” A broad grin spread over Erskine’s face. “Give me a mirror, then. Skulduggery, in case it’s slipped your mind, you currently look like a geisha.”

Skulduggery paused, and shook his head. “Nothing, I’m afraid.”

“I could send for Rue again,” Dexter suggested, speaking carefully with Meritorious in the room, despite the fact that Meritorious very likely wouldn't have heard with his face now beet-root red from silent laughter. “Remember when he walked right up to Baron Vengeous and told him his clothes belonged in an underfunded orphanage? I’ll never forget the look on his face.”

“ _I’ll_ never forget ripping Rue a new one afterwards,” Rover added with a very pointed look towards Dexter.

“Sending for Rue again won’t work,” said Ghastly. “He didn’t laugh the first time. Skulduggery, do you remember when we first met?”

“If you’re referring to when I stole that pirate’s gaudy hat and sailed his ship back under his own power, I don’t find that quite so amusing anymore.”

“I think Descry and Meritorious might both be dying,” Anton pointed out levelly. 

Meritorious hadn't yet stopped laughing, whereas Descry seemed to go through spurts where he nearly managed to control himself, and then fell apart all over again. Meritorious was leaning back against the wall for the support, and Descry had slid all the way off his chair onto the floor, his face now quite clearly as red as his hair even through the make-up.

“We’re missing something,” said Rover with a pout. “We’re missing something important, and I demand to know what it is. Descry, what are we missing?”

Descry blinked his eyes open. “When we first walked in, someone started wondering who the idiot was who invited circus performers, and who that man had to sleep with to secure such ridiculous-looking ones. Then Dexter and Rover walked in, and –“ Descry started laughing again. “He thought he had his answer, before he recognised us.”

Rover stared. “We've been _rubbing off_ on someone? How _rude._ Tell us who that was, I want to go and give him a piece of my –“

“It was Meritorious.”

It should have been the end of all coherent thought in the room, but Corrival was proven wrong a moment later when Descry pulled himself up by the chair leg and pointed at Rover. “You,” he managed with a deep breath, “owe me a shiny new tuppence.”

“And I didn’t even say poop,” Rover nodded sadly.

Corrival gave them the rest of the day off. In his opinion, they’d earned it.


	18. Merriment and Maps

Merriment never lasted in a war. It was one of the painful truths everyone had to accept sooner or later. You could celebrate all you wanted, but once the new day dawned and the hangover had passed, there were plans to discuss and decisions to make. Lives to balance, and sacrifices to endure. This morning, it just happened to be even before the blasted hangover had made itself scarce.

“We've got to get through,” Meritorious was muttering. He’d laid out maps on the table, and was currently poring over them. “Mevolent is massing on the other side of that range, and if we can’t break his hold there, we've lost France completely. We lose France, and it’s only a matter of time before we lose Ireland.”

Corrival squinted down at the table. The light was burning too much, and his head was ringing too much to focus. “There’s no way through.”

“There's the valley.”

“Which leaves all of our men completely open to attack. Without some sort of support from above, we’d be slaughtered.”

“There’s this pass –"

“- which Mevolent will be expecting us to use. It’s a trap.”

“He won’t send an army through there. It’s too narrow.”

“No. But he’ll probably have Vile stationed there.”

Meritorious cursed in a low voice, and swept the map aside. “You’re right. There has to be another way, then.”

Corrival didn’t say what he was thinking, mainly because he knew the unnecessary vitriolic irritation in the words were due more to his lingering hangover than anything else. But even after thinking about it, he didn’t see another option. There _was_ no other way. The only chance they had was the pass, blindly throwing themselves at Vile in a suicide run. That was going to end in failure. Vile was much too powerful. He’d have too much time to concentrate, and against that death power of his, they stood no chance.

But if they didn’t try, they were going to lose the war.

Meritorious rubbed his forehead with one hand, and looked at Descry, who’d been standing silently in the corner of the room ever since he brought them the maps. “What do you think, Descry? Is there no other way to get through? No way to lay a trap of our own? Nothing Mevolent would have overlooked?”

Descry bowed his head, but said nothing. His eyes were closed. Corrival decided to take that as a ‘no,’ and leaned down harder on his knuckles. “If the pass is our only chance, we’ll just have to think creatively. If Vile’s ready for us, we’re finished. But what if he’s not? He has to sleep, just like the rest of us.”

“And if he does?” Meritorious raised his eyes towards Corrival. “What do you propose, sending in the Dead Men? No. It’s too much of a risk. We can’t lose them, especially if we lose the war. They’ll be our only hope to avoid complete subjugation by that point.”

Descry stirred in his corner, and spoke without opening his eyes. “If we lose the war, Meritorious, it won’t matter whether we can resist or not. People will always resist when they have nothing to lose. There won’t be any shortage of volunteers. But there aren't many people who can win a war, and we’re each one of the few. Send us in.”

“You’ll lose, Descry. Vile will kill you all without a second thought.”

“If you don’t send us in, you’ll always wonder if we could have made a difference.” Descry opened his eyes. “Send us in, Meritorious. It’s your only hope.”

Corrival nodded his agreement. “The Dead Men are the only ones who could possibly –“

From the doorway of the room, someone cleared his throat. Corrival didn’t need to turn to know that it was Skulduggery. “I hope I’m not interrupting anything?”

Meritorious didn’t answer the question. “What is it?” 

“Anton wanted to know when we were striking out. I’d also like to know _where,_ if possible.”

“We’re still deliberating. It’ll be another few hours at be-“

“No.” Corrival stood up and looked over. “We can’t waste any more time than we already have. Skulduggery, would you mind giving us your opinion on something?”

“Of course.” He moved over to the table, and glanced down at the map. “What is it we’re deliberating?”

Corrival let Meritorious explain while he shielded his eyes from the light and wished, not for the first time, that he had something with which to dull the pain, or something better suited for leaning on than the table. He looked up at Descry, standing silently in the corner, and consciously apologised for being such an idiot the night before. Descry only tilted his head in response.

“Is there a map of the terrain?” Skulduggery retrieved the one Meritorious had swept aside earlier, and flattened it out on the table. He examined it for all of a second, and then pointed at the pass. “What about here?”

“Vile’s going to be there,” Corrival muttered, impatient despite himself. “Suicide run. Worse than your usual suicide runs. Skulduggery, what happened to the cane you had yesterday? I fear I may need to borrow it.”

Skulduggery hesitated. “I burned it.”

“You _what?_ ” Corrival, Meritorious, and Descry all stared, but Corrival was the one who spoke first. “That was an inlaid gold cane, Skulduggery! What on earth would you burn it for?”

“Larrikin had it engraved with my family crest.”

“All the more reason to keep it!”

“I’m abandoning my family crest.”

Utter silence filled the room. Corrival couldn't quite tell if he didn’t understand because the hangover was getting in the way, or because nothing Skulduggery ever did was understandable, unless you could read his mind. Which even Descry wasn’t able to do, unfortunately. 

Skulduggery either chose to ignore the silence, or just didn’t hear it, and pointed to the pass on the map again. “This is the only way through. If we lose this battle, we lose the war, so we have to use it. Vile might be there. It’s a chance we’re going to have to take. The best way to do it, in that case, would be to send a small group of people who've dealt with him before. They can scout, turn back if he is there without his noticing, and you don’t have to lose any men.”

“It will have to be the lot of you, then,” said Corrival. “The Dead Men.”

Skulduggery looked at him. “Excuse me?”

‘You haven’t fought him, I know, but the others have. They’ll know what to keep an eye out for. And if, by some miracle, you _do_ manage to get through the pass, you’re the only small group of sorcerers I have who would be powerful enough to actually be of some _use_ once you’re there.”

“We’d be of more use down below,” Skulduggery insisted.

“If Vile wasn’t a factor, then yes, you would be. But unless you can give me other names, Skulduggery, we need the advantages of that pass if we’re going to win.”

“ _Hey!_ ”

They all looked up. Rover had come storming into the room, holding what looked like a charcoaled stick. “Skulduggery, what is the meaning of this?”

“If all else fails,” muttered Corrival, “Rover can walk up to Vile and yell at him for something stupidly inconsequential until Vile simply falls over from laughing so hard.”

“I put my blood, sweat, and tears into this cane!” Rover cried, jabbing the stick in Skulduggery’s face. “My blood, sweat, and _tears!_ I passed on some excellent additions that would have made your whole façade that much funnier, just so that it was a cane you wouldn't mind being seen with after yesterday was over! Do you know how much I paid for this cane? Do you know…”

He trailed off of his own accord, and then turned suddenly serious eyes on Corrival. “Did you say Vile?”

“It sounds,” said Meritorious resignedly, “like we’re going to be sending your unit into an almost certain trap, where Vile will be waiting.”

“Joy of joys,” Rover grumbled. “Well, Skul, at least you’ll have a chance for a fight that isn't boring.”

“I look forward to it,” Skulduggery said dryly.

“Do you know how you fight Vile?”

“With incredibly bad luck?”

“No. Anyone else will tell you it’s with an army at your back, hope someone gets in a lucky shot, yadda yadda yadda. But I’ll tell you what you _really_ fight him with.”

“What?”

Rover made a show of looking from side to side, completely missing that he and Skulduggery were not the only ones in the room, and then he leaned forward conspiratorially and spoke in a stage whisper. " _Poop._ ”

Then he smiled cheerfully and left to the sound of Descry’s echoing laughter.

Meritorious shook his head. “This is a terrible idea, Corrival.”

“If you have a better one, I’m all ears.” Corrival hesitated. “Look on the bright side. With a little bit of luck, Larrikin will be dead by the time they get back.”

Meritorious’s eyebrows drew together in shocked surprise, and Corrival shrugged. “Didn't stop Skulduggery either time, now, did it?”


	19. The Pass

The hardest part about the next week wasn’t having to pretend there was danger where there was none. After all, it wasn’t Skulduggery’s first time playing a part, and it wouldn't be his last. It wasn’t the weight of everything he’d done, or the memories, or the guilt, or the ever-constant need to think about what he said – not in case he let something slip, but in case he said something that gave away how much of a challenge it still was to think the way anyone fighting Mevolent would. To consider individual lives just as important as the cause.

No, it was watching his friends grow steadily quieter the further through the pass they traveled. Watching the jokes stop. The smiles dim. The atmosphere grow tense. It was like watching them become a different set of people, all because they thought they were going to encounter Vile within the next day. It was a very, very grave reminder, and it was always there.

There wasn’t a sliver of hope offered up by anyone until they were nearly at the peak. It was cold enough in the uninhibited wind to warrant a small campfire, built low and sparse so that no smoke gave away where they were. They warmed themselves as much as they could during those few daylight hours, because when the sun began to sink and the wind picked up, they were going to have to put it out.

Rover stared thoughtfully into the flames, and then sat back on his hands. “There’s a very good chance he isn't going to show up.”

“What makes you say that?” Dexter asked.

“Remember when he nearly killed us last month?”

No one answered. No one needed to. Dexter flinched and looked away; most everyone else was looking silently at the fire. Only Skulduggery and Descry met Rover’s pointed look, until Anton spoke from the other side of the flames. “There could have been any number of reasons why he didn’t.”

“Yes,” Rover agreed. “Up to and including _someone managed to kill him._ ”

“Who? Why haven’t they come forward?”

“What happened?” Skulduggery managed to ask. He knew the answer, and he didn’t particularly want to hear it, but he had to ask.

“We were making a push,” said Erskine flatly. “A couple of days’ travel from Dublin. Mevolent’s followers were attacking the coastline, which was a damn stupid thing of them to do. We suspected a trap, but we didn’t think Vile was in the country.” He closed his eyes. “Descry, Rover, and I were in the lead. We’d won, we’d pushed them back, and then…”

“Everyone dropped,” Ghastly said, taking up the story when Erskine trailed off. “The rest of us were convinced that was it. We couldn't so much as step forward, in case that put us within range of wherever Vile was. We couldn't do anything but watch.”

“And then we came back,” said Rover, suddenly cheerful, and his voice took on the mocking edge of song. “Just like our Lord Jesus.”

“And then we all attacked each other,” added Dexter with a hint of a smile. “You can’t be too sure, after all. Took a few minutes for everyone to sort themselves out.”

Skulduggery tilted his head. “You don’t have any idea what stopped him?”

“We didn’t even know he _could_ be stopped,” Erskine muttered. “Or that he could let us come back to life at all. Generous of him, given the circumstances.”

“If you’re asking whether we remember anything, Skulduggery,” Descry spoke up softly, “the answer is no. For us, the world faded, and then we woke up. That was all.”

“I pretended to be a zombie for the next two days,” said Rover. “That was an adventure. Anton hit me when he’d had enough.”

“You died right in front of me,” said Anton. “And then you rubbed it in my face. I was out of patience.”

“I think I remember tears in your eyes, actually.”

“You’re remembering wrong.”

“I never remember anything wrong.” Rover looked at Skulduggery. “What do you think? Do you think it’s possible someone killed Vile? I think it’s possible someone killed Vile. I don’t think we’re going to run into anything tomorrow.”

Skulduggery thought about the armour, lying buried deep underground somewhere several miles outside of Dublin. No one knew where it was. _He_ didn’t know where it was. Without that story, he wouldn't even have had Dublin as a point of reference. The only other person who knew about the armour’s true origins was dead, and the only person who would have an idea of where to start looking was too preoccupied with fighting a losing war for nameless and faceless masters that he was never going to see again.

That armour was going to stay buried.

“I don’t know,” he murmured, voice smooth with the practice of lying. “I find it hard to believe that whoever did wouldn't at least brag about it.”

“That’s what I said,” Anton agreed. “And Rover –"

“Don’t worry, don’t worry, I’m not about to pin all my expectations on the damn Necromancer not showing up,” Rover muttered impatiently. “Hope for the best, prepare for the worst, I remember.”

Ghastly raised an eyebrow. “I thought our motto was ‘strike from the shadows, retreat into darkness.’”

One of the benefits of being a living skeleton was the ability to hide your reactions. No one even noticed Skulduggery flinch. Everyone looked instead at Rover’s pout. “We can have multiple mottos.”

“In that case, let me add one.” Erskine sat forward. “No matter what, we all come back alive.”

“A mite bit optimistic, don’t you think?”

“But true. Skulduggery died, and it didn’t stop him. Skulduggery disappeared, and it still didn’t stop him. Three of us were mincemeat at Vile’s hands, and yet we’re all still here.”

They all sat and contemplated that for a moment in companionable silence. It was easy to grow accustomed to a reputation, and a nickname, while dismissing the intent behind it. It wasn’t often, even in Skulduggery’s case, that they were all faced with exactly how many times they _had_ cheated death. He knew the others found it comforting in a strangely eerie way.

“Well, I can tell you one thing,” said Rover. “And that’s that if Skulduggery ever appears in my tent wearing a long dark robe and carrying a scythe, someone’s getting thrown off the top of a waterfall.”

It made Skulduggery chuckle, and for him, _that_ was comforting in a strangely eerie way. “I’ll be sure to keep that in mind.”

“I owe myself a tuppence,” Rover said happily.

~~

The peak of the pass was much more open than any of them had imagined. It would have been flat if not for the rocky terrain, without a hint of cover in sight. There was simply a line of scruffy trees, and then an open distance spanning the top of the pass – probably offering an excellent view of the valley below, where the rest of the army soon would be.

“It’s the perfect trap,” said Ghastly. “There’s no way Vile won’t see us coming.”

“If he’s even there,” Rover reminded him.

“Rover.”

“Yes, I know, he probably is. But where’s the hope? If you don’t have hope in life, my friend, then where’s the point?”

“What are we going to do?” said Erskine. “Walk out there and _hope_ he isn't?”

“Well, no. That would be stupid.”

“He can’t hurt me when my Gist is out,” Anton said. “If the rest of you stay behind me, we can watch to see what else it attacks.”

“And then we’ll have an angry Necromancer bearing down on us,” Dexter said. “I fail to see how that’s in any way _better_.”

“We wouldn't be walking into a hopeless trap.”

“On behalf of Descry, I have to be offended,” said Rover, crossing his arms. “He could concoct a _much_ better trap than this. And has. He’d probably tell you all about them, but since he hasn't talked since we left, I’m going to have to do it for him.”

“Please don’t.”

“I've talked,” Descry objected.

“No, you haven’t,” Rover argued. “Not once. Well, not until just now.”

“You can’t read anything, Descry?” Skulduggery asked.

“I've never been able to read Vile,” he said quietly. “Too much Necromancy in the way.”

Convenient excuse. But it also meant they’d never be able to agree on a course of action, and take much too long in arguing the point, so Skulduggery cut them all short by rising to his feet and walking forward.

“Skulduggery!” Ghastly hissed. “What are you doing?”

“I’m the only one he might not be able to kill,” said Skulduggery over his shoulder. “Of course, if I drop dead, you’d better run.”

“Skulduggery, he can kill _zombies._ ”

“Good thing I’m not a zombie, then, isn't it?”

Ghastly tried to object again, but Descry put a hand on his shoulder and shook his head. “He wasn’t there when your mother was killed, Ghastly. He needs to feel useful. Let him have this.”

“He’s going to kill himself. It’s the waterfalls all over again.”

“Or he might not. Have a little more faith in him. Do you _really_ think he’s going to walk in there without having planned out every detail first?”

“Yes.”

“Faith, Ghastly.”

_Descry knows,_ some small and well-hidden part of Skulduggery panicked while he stepped out of earshot.

_He can’t. If he knew, he would never keep quiet. Nor should he._

Skulduggery took the distance slowly. Vile might have been taken care of, but Mevolent wasn’t a fool. He’d know about the pass, he’d know how useful having the pass would be, and he’d have a different way of stopping them from taking it. An assassin. A group. Vampires. Anything.

The thing was that Descry hadn't read anyone. And, as Skulduggery reached the middle of the open peak and no one had jumped out to attack him, it was starting to look more and more like Mevolent had taken an incredibly risky gamble. If he thought that _they_ thought Vile would be here, and thus wouldn't even try…

That, Skulduggery thought gravely, would teach him to underestimate the tenacity of desperate people.

He stopped. Turned, very slowly, on the spot. Read the air through his fingers, annoyed with how small his reading distance had gotten since the last time he’d done it. He tried not to think about how, as Vile, he’d known exactly how many people were in the area a full kilometre above his head.

He held his arm up, and a moment later the rest of the Dead Men joined him. Slowly, cautiously, with their own individual scans of the area, but by the time they’d all gathered around Skulduggery, they’d all straightened, confused.

No words were exchanged, because no words had to be. No one was looking smug, not even Rover. The general consensus aligned around the idea that if Vile wasn’t here, then he had to be down in the valley. And that was, if possible, even worse.

Skulduggery reached the edge of the peak first, and flattened himself down onto his sternum so he was as close to the ground as possible, before looking over. Mevolent’s men were certainly down there. They were cheerful, almost boisterous, in the mistaken belief that once they took the range they’d won the war. One by one, the others joined him, Anton first and with a frown. Then Erskine, Dexter, and Rover, each with a similar expression until Rover cocked his head. “No sign?”

“None,” said Anton. His eyes were wide with surprise. “They must have other plans they’re saving him for.”

“Like what?” Rover wanted to know. “Cuddly arms of death, for when we’re all subjugated? When has Vile ever held back before?”

“He’s not exactly subtle,” Ghastly agreed. “If he was here, we would know.”

“He’s not dead,” said Anton.

“Why can’t he be dead?” Dexter asked.

“Because nothing in life is ever that easy, and doubly so in the middle of a war. Villains do not simply back down, and they’re never conveniently killed right when we most need them to be. Vile is not dead, mark my words.”

Rover gave him a surprisingly winsome look. “Huh. I must be a zombie, then.”

“ _Don’t._ ”

“Don’t what? Anton, we should be dead, and we’re not. Vile should be here, and he isn't. All right, he might not be dead, but then he’s as good as. I can guarantee you that Mevolent is feeling the loss right about now, and hoping we won’t notice. Well, we have. So I say we rain death upon the poor fools celebrating below us, scare them all to pieces, perhaps yell ‘poop’ at them when they’re distracted with putting out the flames on their arses, make Mevolent gape – you know, Dexter, with that big toothless shark mouth of his – and win this Godforsaken war once and for all. Then we can track Vile down and, provided he isn't a corpse, give him what for.”

“I like that plan,” said Dexter. “I think that’s a good plan. We’ll do that, then.”

“We do have to wait,” Erskine reminded them. “At least until our side shows up. Dead Men we may be, but if any of you feels like taking on an entire army with just the seven of us, you’re on your own.”

Rover’s face fell. “I hate waiting.”

Dexter patted him on the head. “There, there, dear husband. Mevolent will still gape like a giant toothless shark, I promise.”

“Hm? Oh, no. I’m not talking about the war. I can always wait for blood and violence. I was talking about waiting for Skulduggery to laugh. Come on, man, I said the word! How long is your delayed reaction going to take?”

“You want me to laugh?” Skulduggery asked incredulously. “Now? With all those dangerous people below us, and a good chance they’ll hear?”

“Whyever not? We can handle them. Well, Erskine’s going to leave, apparently, but I’m sure the rest of us can handle it.”

“You have a death wish, Larrikin.”

“No more than you, dead man.” Rover settled down again with his chin on the rock, watching the merriment below. He grinned a malicious grin. “Make merry while you can, evildoers. Merriment _never_ lasts in a war.”


	20. Aoife's Vision

They made it through the pass. 

They made it through the pass alive. 

They made it through the pass without _injury_ , disregarding minor cuts and bruises, and this was after watching Rover roll off the precipice to go and join the fighting down below. Lord Vile never made an appearance, either, although a few younger sorcerers came up the other side of the pass to try and stop the Dead Men from raining death down on them from above. That was their mistake. Dexter fought them off at first with nothing more than his energy blasts – he needed a sort of mental stability to conjure that he hadn't had since Skulduggery disappeared five years ago. When it occurred to him that was no longer an issue, he conjured a large magical shield, and that was the last they needed to worry about the attackers. 

They made it through the pass. They didn’t lose the war. And while the main army dealt with the last of Mevolent’s defenders, the Dead Men went on ahead, making sure no other traps lay in wait.

_Defenders._ Dexter loved when they could use that word. He loved when they could honestly say they were on the offensive.

It was the first vestige of hope they’d had in a very long time, and under normal circumstances, they would have been celebrating. Instead, they were in enemy territory, and everyone was exhausted besides. It wasn’t long after they’d laid out the bedrolls that most of them fell asleep, dead to the world, enjoying a very well-earned rest. Unfortunately, by a drawing of sticks, it was Dexter’s turn to spend the night awake. His turn to watch out for the others, to let them get the sleep they so desperately needed. It was annoying, but it was a duty he accepted without complaint, because he didn’t see having time alone as a bad thing and he didn’t feel much like sleeping, anyway. 

He could _conjure_ again. After five years. He spent at least an hour conjuring a small thimble on his thumb, and then vanishing it again, just to prove to himself that he could.

He and Skulduggery talked for a bit around the campfire – or the place where they would have built a fire, and certainly treated like a campfire – when everyone else had retreated to their blankets. It still felt a little strange, after five years of believing he was dead, to be treated to Skulduggery's warmly arrogant sense of humour like nothing had changed. It had been almost a month since the skeleton’s return, and Dexter still caught himself adjusting occasionally.

“How tired are you?” asked Skulduggery.

“I’m not.”

“You’re not?”

Dexter shrugged. “Not particularly.”

“Because if you were, it would be a little ridiculous for you to feel obligated to stay awake.”

“And we've never done anything ridiculous before, have we?”

Skulduggery chuckled. It was, as always, a nice sound, and it made Dexter smile. “Fair point,” Skulduggery admitted. “In that case, I look forward to your scintillating company.”

“Ah.” Dexter bit his lip. “Does that mean I have to speak?”

“Well…”

“We couldn't simply sit in a nice and awkward silence?”

Skulduggery hesitated. “I’d prefer it if it wasn’t awkward.”

“It doesn't have to be awkward.”

“Then I look forward to your pleasantly silent company.”

“Good.” Dexter nodded, and they both fell into a pleasantly companionable silence. Dexter looked down at the ground between their stumps for a few moments, listened to the calls of birds in the trees for another few moments, and then stood up. “I’ll just go check on Descry, then.”

“Traitor.”

“For worrying about a friend?” Dexter turned and grinned at the skeleton. “You’d rather I stayed here and stewed in silent contemplation?”

“I’d rather you stayed here and talked.”

“Then you’re just going to have to be disappointed, aren't you?” Dexter sobered. “Besides, I _am_ worried. Rover had a point. He doesn't speak, and he hasn't slept properly in days. Aren't you worried?”

“This isn't the first time he’s had trouble. He knows how to handle himself.”

“Aren't you worried about what’s _giving_ him trouble?”

“If it was something I needed to be worried about, Descry would tell us.”

Dexter shook his head. “You lead a very untroubled life, you know that?”

“Untroubled.” Skulduggery’s skull tilted to the side. “We’re in the middle of a war with one of the most evil sorcerers in existence, and I’m dead. What part of my life, exactly, did you think was untroubled?”

“I've heard that death brings ultimate peace.”

“You’d be surprised.”

Dexter grinned. “Try and get some sleep, Skulduggery. Sleep would probably help.”

“You know, I've changed my mind. Stop talking and leave, please.”

Laughing lightly, Dexter presented Skulduggery with a deep bow. “Your wish is my command.”

Descry’s tent, or claimed piece of ground, was usually on the edge of the camp, regardless of whether the distance actually helped him sleep or not. Tonight, it seemed to be doing the trick. Dexter came upon Descry sound asleep, turned on his side toward the rest of the camp and slightly curled in on himself.

Sleeping, Dexter reflected, was the only time Descry ever looked truly at peace.

Dexter sat down on a nearby rotting log and crossed his arms on his knees, keeping his thoughts as simple and lilting as he could. He thought about the breeze moving through the treetops, the coolness of the night, the conversation he just had with Skulduggery about untroubled lives. Untroubled lives and peaceful deaths.

Descry twitched in his sleep. 

Dexter immediately cleared his mind, sat back, and looked up at the twinkling stars. It was relatively easy for him – for any of them – to think about nothing these days. It was almost a form of meditation by now. Descry, of all of them, needed his sleep; if they weren't very careful, the mind-reader could and _would_ go for almost a week without. And he had, before. They’d only known something was wrong when Descry finally keeled over in the middle of a meeting after muttering something about magic mushroom houses.

This time, Dexter’s thinking wasn’t helping. The twitching didn’t stop. After another minute or so, Dexter gave up and looked back down, concerned. Everyone had nightmares, but none so frequently or as harshly as Descry seemed to. And if one of the others was having a nightmare that Descry was picking up on, there wasn’t much Dexter could do. Everyone needed sleep tonight. He couldn't just wake anyone up.

The twitching grew more violent as Dexter watched, and then with a groan Descry turned over to face the woods. Dexter’s gaze snapped up to the tree line, just in case someone was trying to sneak up on them, but there was nothing other than the breeze. And if anyone had gotten this close, it would have woken Descry up long before now.

Then it was a nightmare. Dexter sighed. He couldn't wake Descry up, because God knew he needed the sleep, but… it was hard enough watching a normal person going through bad dreams. Descry didn’t have dreams of his own. Descry’s dreams were all echoes of other peoples’ nightmares, other peoples’ deaths, other peoples’ suffering. An amalgamation of it all. And there was no escape for him. It was very much like watching somebody being tortured. Dexter drew his legs up underneath him and started humming an old Irish lullaby. Humming was a way to focus thoughts, according to Descry. Dexter intended to take full advantage of that tonight, if it would help in any way whatsoever. 

It didn’t seem to. But Dexter didn’t stop. Descry flipped back over, pulled the worn blanket up over his shoulders, curled up into a shivering ball. Dexter kept humming, trying to keep his mounting concern at bay, until one extraordinarily violent twitch turned more into a jerk of Descry’s whole body.

Dexter couldn't watch this anymore. Something was wrong. He knelt down by the mind reader’s side and gently shook his shoulder. “Descry?”

That was the first indication of something being deeply wrong, when Descry didn’t wake up right away. Dexter bit his lip and tried again. “Descry?”

Still nothing. Dexter almost stood up to go and get Skulduggery, but froze when Descry barked out a single ragged word through breaths that were starting to come much too quickly. “No!”

Dexter fell back down to his knees and roughly shook Descry’s shoulders. “Descry, wake up.”

“Vile –"

“Descry, wake up.”

“Vile – _why_ –"

“Because Mevolent needed him for something else. Who knows? _Wake up._ ”

“Skulduggery…”

“He’s sitting right over by the campfire. He’s perfectly fine. Vile didn’t kill him. Cassandra was wrong.” Dexter didn’t stop shaking Descry as he spoke. “Please, you need to wake up.”

“Skulduggery.” Descry didn’t wake up, but he did calm down, sinking back onto his sleeping pad with one hand groping for Dexter’s arm. 

Dexter also calmed down, letting Descry’s hand find his lower arm and grip it with all its might. “Why did he leave? We don’t know. He won’t tell us. Descry, you’re fine. You’re here with us. With the Dead Men. It’s Dexter, Dexter Vex. Remember?”

Descry’s voice changed. It wasn’t haggard anymore – quite the contrary, it was calm and level. It was someone else’s voice, someone else’s memory, played through Descry's lips. His eyes shot open, the pupils dilated to the point where his eyes looked black in the darkness. “No. He felt guilty because he was Lord Vile. You don’t know that. You _don’t know that_. He’s his _friend_.”

Dexter was immediately and completely stunned into halted and forced laughter. Lower body suddenly paralyzed, lungs suddenly painfully constricted, the conjurer did his best to form words. “Vile isn't _anyone’s_ friend, let alone… Descry. Descry, wake up.”

“Vile –"

“He’s not. No. You’re wrong. Descry. Descry, wake up. _Wake up, god damn it!_ ”

Descry’s elbow cracked up into Dexter’s face, and he reeled away with a shortly muttered stream of curses, hands over his face. _It’s me, Descry! It’s Dexter! You’re safe!_

No other attack came, which at least ruled out the possibility of Descry being lost again. Dexter waited for the pain to subside before he cupped his hands below his face to check for blood, found none, and looked up.

Descry was staring at him, face ashen. “I’m sorry.”

“Eh.” Dexter waved a hand feebly in the air. “You didn’t break anything. I’ll be fine.”

“Not about that.”

Dexter’s gut rebelled violently against those words. He almost turned and threw up on the other side of the stump, and only barely managed to avoid doing so by clapping his hands back onto his face and swallowing hard, multiple times.

Descry didn’t try to explain himself. He just sat there quietly, a gentle grief in his eyes, and Dexter finally shook his head – hard. “You’re wrong.”

“I wish I was.”

“Well, good. Because you _are._ I was just talking with him, with _Skulduggery,_ and he’s not – how can you _think_ that?”

“Do you really want me to tell you?”

Dexter dropped his hands and glared defiantly at the mind reader. “Do I? You tell me.”

“I’d only be telling you what you already know.”

“What I already – for God’s sake, Descry, can you hear yourself? This is Lord Vile we’re –"

Dexter cut himself off, one hand clapped over his mouth, in shock and appalled at himself. Lord Vile. _Lord Vile_. It was a miracle the Necromancer hadn't shown up at the pass two days ago. Just that. A miracle. It didn’t prove anything, it didn’t explain anything, it wasn’t…

His eyes were glued to Descry’s unchanged face. Descry, after a few moments, bowed his head and looked away. “Skulduggery abandoned his family crest.”

“Because he isn't proud of this war, or the things he’s had to do. None of us are.”

“He disappeared months before Vile appeared, unnaturally angry. The moment he reappears, Vile’s gone.”

“That doesn't mean that… it could be a coincidence, or it could mean something completely different. Ghastly said once that it’s possible Vile was the Necromancer who brought Skulduggery back. Maybe that’s true. Maybe he can control Skulduggery. It would certainly explain why Skulduggery’s so reluctant to talk about wherever he went.”

“No one ever saw Vile’s face. He didn’t eat. He didn’t sleep.”

“He’s evil. Evil never sleeps.”

“Solomon Wreath, in the Temple, was the only Necromancer who survived a duel against Lord Vile. The only Necromancer whom Skulduggery used to be friends with.”

“Coincidence. Pure coincidence.”

“When Ghastly tried to tell Skulduggery his mother’s death wasn’t his fault, Skulduggery flinched.”

“No. No he didn’t. I was there.”

“Only Ghastly noticed. Only Ghastly has known Skulduggery long enough.”

“And did _Ghastly_ immediately assume the worst? No. He didn’t. Why? Because we’re all _friends._ Friends give each other the benefit of the doubt. At _least_.”

“He knew Vile wouldn't be at the pass.”

“No. He _guessed_ Vile wouldn't be at the pass. If we tried to go around, we would have lost the war. He took a calculated risk. He’s good at that, Descry. Remember?”

“Skulduggery came back as Saracen Rue, despite claiming many times in the past he never would. He kept it up for over a week.”

“He felt guilty over letting us believe he was dead for five years.”

“No. He felt guilty because he was Lord Vile.”

Dexter physically recoiled. “You don’t know that. You _don’t know that._ You can’t read his mind. Cassandra – what about Cassandra’s vision?”

“Cassandra saw Lord Vile where Skulduggery should have been. She interpreted the rest from there. Mistress Aoife… had her own vision, just before she was killed.”

“Unless the vision specifically told her that Skulduggery was evil incarnate, Descry, I still don’t believe it.”

“She saw parts of our conversation, just now.”

“And what does that prove? That you develop an incredibly unhealthy fixation on the idea that one of our best friends is a mass murderer?”

“Don’t be so loud.”

Dexter was starting to feel a yawning sense of hopelessness. “You don’t have any proof.”

Descry hesitated, but then he looked up and met Dexter’s gaze unflinchingly. “I have enough.”

He did. And Dexter didn’t have a response. It was a scattered pile of scraps of information so unrelated that no one had ever made the connection. No one would ever make the connection, either. The parts that made the connection possible were facts only a mind-reader could reach. Only Descry. 

Only Descry. And now, Dexter as well.

_When did you start realising?_ Dexter asked in his thoughts, because he didn’t trust his voice to work right then. Even his own thoughts sounded vague and distant to him.

“I suspected when he first appeared, right after I visited the Necromancers’ Temple. I didn’t even realise I suspected at first, not until the battle where Mistress Aoife died. I told Ghastly to stop her. Why would I do that? She was the only one who could have killed him. She would have, if Ghastly hadn't been there. Why would I want her to stop? Then I was close enough to hear her vision, and… you know the rest from there.”

_He nearly killed you. And Erskine. And Rover._

“He tried. I don’t know what stopped him. Perhaps it was us. More likely it was something different. I didn’t even dare to hope that he might come back.”

Dexter’s entire being had numbed. He couldn't see Skulduggery from where he was sitting, but he avoided looking in that direction anyway. Every breath was suddenly a chore, and he focused on that, focused on hearing each breath as he expelled it.

“I’m sorry,” Descry said again. “I didn’t mean for any of you to find out.”

“You didn’t –" Dexter blinked, surprised. “You weren't going to say… anything? To anyone?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

For the first time that evening, Descry’s face broke. The weight of the information must have proven just a bit too much, and Dexter was pretty sure he wasn’t helping. Not that he’d really been trying to, though. An overwhelming grief, an overwhelming helplessness, crossed the mind-reader’s face, daunting enough because helplessness wasn’t something Dexter had ever seen on Descry’s face before. 

“Because he _came back,_ Dexter. He came back to us. He didn’t have to. We’d given up on his being alive, he’d spent five years completely lost – Mevolent would have won, if Vile was at the pass. But Vile wasn’t at the pass, because he was a few metres to our left, fighting for _us._ Something happened, and Skulduggery came back. He snapped himself out of it, he gave up a _powerful_ addiction, and then he _came back to us_.”

Dexter still wasn’t convinced. He let his disbelief ring in his thoughts, because he had absolutely no idea how to put it into words, and a glimmer of a tear appeared in Descry’s eyes. “Remember when he first laughed, the other day?”

Dexter snorted. “How could I ever forget?”

“That was because of us. We’re helping him, just by being there. We may even have been the reason he snapped himself out of it in the first place. But you know Skulduggery, Dexter – can you imagine the guilt weighing down on him right now?”

“No,” Dexter answered truthfully, fully aware that Descry already knew that. And, of course, that Descry couldn't either. “I can’t.”

“What do you think he would do if he found out one of us knows?”

Dexter’s heart lurched. “He’d leave.”

“Where we wouldn't be able to do him any good. Right here, right now, we’re helping. If we tell him we know, or if we tell anyone else – how does that help him?”

Dexter’s eyes were wide with the same disbelief from before, but now it was tinged with a hint of anger. “So you can just sit back and do nothing? You can justify it that way? You weren't even going to tell the rest of us?”

“Of course not. Or were you going to be the one to tell Ghastly?”

_Ghastly._ All the air fell out of Dexter’s sail, and he deflated back down to the ground, very close to feeling defeated for the first time in this ridiculous war.

“And you were,” Descry added.

“I was what?”

“Helping.”

Of course. Of course he was. Of course Descry would know that Dexter was despairing, and try to cheer him up. “You were having a nightmare about this, Descry. What was I supposed to do?”

“No, I mean…” Descry was silent for a while, staring down at the forest floor, and then he sighed. “Knowledge is… a burden. More so when you don’t want to believe it. I’m too accustomed, I think, to _knowing_ about people. But you were right. I don’t know. Not about Skulduggery. I can’t be sure.” He hesitated. “It helps more than you’d think, to remember that you can’t be sure about someone.”

Dexter didn’t answer. He’d stopped trying to understand things from Descry’s perspective a long time ago. Little reminders like this did nothing to help his understanding. All they did was trigger pity, or something equally unpleasant for Descry himself to experience second-hand. But every so often, Dexter could feel a small inkling of what the mind-reader was put through every day, and it always – _always_ – left him with a sense of awe. Regardless of the circumstances. Regardless of what they were accusing their friend of.

And Descry knew all of that, of course. 

“You don’t want it confirmed,” Dexter said finally.

Descry shook his head. “I know enough to help. I’ll try to teach him some meditation, at least. Not being able to sleep is certainly not helping his sanity.”

“But you don’t want to know for sure.”

“No. I don’t. Do you?”

No. He didn’t. Dexter ran a hand through his hair in defeat, expelling a long breath. “I wouldn't ask even if I did. Either we’re wrong, and we’re accusing one of our greatest friends in the world of some of the worst war crimes in history without a single shred of proof, or… or we’re right.” Dexter swallowed. “And he leaves. Where we can’t help him. Our family breaks apart.”

Descry nodded.

“Your knowledge is _terrible,_ I hope you know.”

“Knowledge is a terrible thing to waste.”

Dexter glared at him, then abruptly realised Descry wasn’t the one who spoke when Descry himself jumped at the noise. Dexter spun around on his stump to see Skulduggery standing just at the edge of the trees. He yelped and fell backwards onto the grass, almost grateful for the chance to hide his face. “Skulduggery, you idiot,” he hissed. “How many times have we told you not to sneak up on people?”

“You haven’t. You've asked. I've chosen to ignore.”

“How much did you hear?” asked Descry quietly. 

“Not much. Something about knowledge being terrible.” Skulduggery’s head tilted to the side. “Are you two alright?”

He knew. How could he not know? How couldn't he say anything about it? How could he know even _that_ much from their conversation and not immediately guess what that conversation was about? Unless it wasn’t true, and he didn’t have a reason to think of Lord Vile.

Dexter chose not to sit back up in favour of keeping his face hidden behind the stump. “We’re fine!” He waved a hand in the air to prove the fact. “We’re fine. Descry had a nightmare, I talked him back down. Nothing exciting here.”

“What are you still doing on the ground?”

Dexter managed a shrug against the grass. “Alright. One exciting thing.” He propped himself up and forced himself to look Skulduggery in the skull.

Sorcerers, as a rule, were used to strange things. Living skeletons were about the strangest you could get in the world of magic. After the initial shock was over, most people treated Skulduggery the same as any living human being, and the Dead Men were no exception.

Except now. Now, Dexter looked into those empty eye sockets, and all he saw was a skeleton that talked.

All he saw was Lord Vile.

It took a great deal of effort to ignore the shiver down his spine and to smile. “What were you doing in the woods?”

“I thought I heard something, but I was wrong. Then you were taking too long, so I came to find you. All well?”

“All well.”

Skulduggery turned his skull a fraction towards Descry. “Will you be able to get back to sleep?”

“Probably not.”

“You’re welcome to join us, in that case.”

Descry smiled. Dexter was eternally amazed at how the Adept kept such careful control. Looking at him now, you wouldn't think a single thing was wrong. “Thank you for the generous offer, but I do need to try. You two have fun.”

Dexter glanced helplessly towards Descry. The very last thing he wanted was to spend a night alone with Skulduggery while he was trying to process all this new information. But Descry didn’t look at him, and after a moment Skulduggery spoke again, confusion in his voice. “Alright.” He paused. “I didn’t walk in on anything, did I?”

“No, you didn’t.”

“Excellent. I’ll see you in the morning, then.”

The moment Skulduggery was gone, Dexter rounded on Descry. “Throwing me to the wolves? I thought we were friends.”

“We’re _all_ friends. That includes you and Skulduggery. Nothing’s changed, Dexter. In fact, you’re better friends now, if anything.”

“How am I supposed to sit there and look him in the eye?”

Descry smiled a humourless smile. “You don’t. He doesn't have eyes.”

“How doesn't he…” Dexter stopped, swallowed, and tried again. “This is _Skulduggery_ we’re talking about. He’ll figure out on his own that we know, if he hasn't already. What do we do then?”

“He won’t.” Descry’s face and tone had regained the quiet confidence he was known for. “To Skulduggery, it’s unfathomable that anyone could know and not confront him about it. He may suspect, but he’ll never know. He’ll talk himself out of his own suspicions.”

“I don’t blame him,” Dexter muttered. “ _I_ think it’s unfathomable that anyone could know and not confront him about it.”

Descry’s smile turned gentle. “If you ever want to ask him, I won’t stop you. I’ll just ask that you keep it between the two of you. Ghastly especially… he wouldn't be able to handle this.”

Dexter surprised himself by shaking his head vehemently. “No. I can’t. This family means too much to too many of us.” _Rover, especially. Rover would break, if something broke us apart._ “I’ll just… carry on, and pretend we’re wrong.”

“ _Pretend_ we’re wrong?”

“ _Know_ we’re wrong.” Dexter injected as much of Descry’s confidence into his voice as he could. “We’re so completely wrong that it’s almost pathetic.” With that, he pushed himself up to his feet using the stump for support, and gave Descry a small salute. “So stop having nightmares about it.”

“I’ll do my best.”

Dexter was going to start having nightmares about this. They both knew it. It was an unspoken knowledge that passed between them, and Dexter left before the unspoken part could change.

The moonlight framed the dark hollows in Skulduggery’s skull as Dexter walked up. The effect was almost mesmerizing, particularly when that skull moved to look up at Dexter. “Whose nightmare was it?”

“Hm?”

“Descry’s nightmare. Whose was it?”

“Oh.” Dexter thought about it, doing his best to maintain eye contact with the skeleton. Just as if nothing was wrong. “The Sasquatch’s.”

“The…?”

“The Sasquatch. He lives around here, didn’t you know? Terribly guilty conscience. Countless nightmares. Descry’s starting to feel sorry for the poor creature.”

It wasn’t, Dexter belatedly realised, too far off the mark. Assuming Skulduggery did feel guilty. And, of course, assuming they were even _right._

Skulduggery chuckled. “Alright. I’ll stop asking.”

“Why didn’t you laugh before?” Dexter blurted. 

“Before what?”

“Before... before. Just before. The first time any of us heard you laugh was when you came back. Why?”

A bird called into the ensuing silence. Dexter sat down on the opposite side of the clearing and refused to break the eye contact, staring Skulduggery down until the skeleton was the one who looked away.

“When I died,” he said, “and came back from the dead, for lack of a better phrase, there wasn’t much I found funny. My family was dead. Their murderer wasn’t. I’d died for the sake of a war that we weren't going to win. I didn’t have a reason to keep fighting, but I had even less reason not to.”

“And now?”

“Now… now, I have a very clear picture of what happens when I don’t find anything funny.”

It was almost as good as a confession. Dexter swallowed hard and kept his voice even. “What happens?”

“I get very grumpy.”

“Is that what happened during the last five years? You got grumpy?”

“Well, not all five years.”

“Right.” Dexter forced a smile. “You had a pretty girl teach you how to laugh for the last bit, didn’t you?”

“He wasn’t a girl.”

Anything Dexter might have been about to say either died on his tongue or contributed to the immediate choking fit that gripped him. Skulduggery sat innocently by and watched as Dexter struggled to regain control of his speaking capabilities, which took much longer than it strictly should have. 

Finally, Dexter rubbed a hand over his face. “You aren't going to tell me this story if I beg, are you?”

“Very astute.”

_I hope you’re enjoying this,_ Dexter offered up silently to Descry. _I really, really hope you’re enjoying this._ “What if I can get everyone to stop asking you what happened for the last five years?”

Skulduggery thought about it. “No.”

“Why not?”

“Because I seriously question your ability to get everyone to stop asking what happened for the last five years.”

“What if I can get Corrival to stop everyone?”

“That would probably work,” Skulduggery agreed with a nod.

“So then you’ll tell me?”

“No.”

“Are we ever going to get to meet this mystery bloke?”

“With luck, no.”

“That should be simple, then.” Dexter leaned back on his hands and watched the moon in the sky. “We have _terrible_ luck.”

Skulduggery paused, and then said very carefully, “I wouldn't say that.”

“Oh?”

“We won yesterday.”

The words took a moment to sink in, and then Dexter found himself grinning. “You’re right. We did. And If Lord Vile stays missing, or dead, or incompetent, then we stand a real chance of winning this war once and for all.”

“We do.”

“We should toast Lord Vile at the next celebratory dinner.”

“I... wouldn't take it that far.”

“Too bad, dead man. You’re just upset you won’t get to partake in any of the glory for killing him.”

“Yes. That must be it.”

“Still plenty of killing to be done. No one’s gotten Serpine yet, or the Baron. And then, of course, there’s Mevolent.”

Skulduggery didn’t answer that, and Dexter didn’t prompt him to. They fell back into a silence far less awkward than the previous one, and that silence lasted well into the dawn hours. Not a word was said, and yet Dexter still felt as though that was the first time since meeting Skulduggery that they’d ever truly _talked._

The greatest victory came when Descry had apparently slept well the rest of the night, and gave Dexter nothing but a grateful smile in the morning.


	21. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Spoilers for Book 8: The Last Stand of Dead Men.** While the identity of the man with the golden eyes isn't revealed, he does make an appearance, and there are definite spoilers for Book 8's plot. Read on at your own risk.

The war ended. Creyfon Signate didn’t pay attention to how. He knew who _won_ , because you really had to be living under a rock not to know that, but he couldn't care less because he didn’t count himself among either side by the end of it. True, he remembered a time when he and his twin brother worshipped the Faceless Ones as gods, and dedicated their entire lives to finding a way to bring them home.

He also remembered watching his brother scream in pain and abject horror as he was possessed by one of them, and then killed in the very next minute. By Vile. He and his brother had been linked magically. Creyfon had _felt_ that death. 

Suffice to say, he’d had a crisis of faith.

These days, the only place in Ireland where he could actually be left alone was Roarhaven. He’d found kindred spirits there. People who didn’t believe in the Faceless Ones, or didn’t care, but were just as embittered by the spread of ignorant mortals who considered themselves laughably superior. He lived there quite miserably for several years until one day, during a moonlit walk by the lake, when he was approached by a man with golden eyes.

“Creyfon Signate?” the man with the golden eyes asked.

Creyfon stopped, wary. He’d met the man with golden eyes before. They’d been trying to kill each other. “Who wants to know?”

“I do.”

“You?” Creyfon scoffed. “I’m surprised you even _remember_ me. We were small fry to people like you, weren't we?”

“Not to me.” The man with golden eyes put his hands into his pockets. “I’d like to ask you something. A colleague of mine recently acquired a very interesting fact from one Eliza Scorn. Remember her?”

Creyfon didn’t answer. They both knew what the answer was, anyway. The only reason Creyfon hadn't already left this conversation was that the other citizens of Roarhaven actually seemed to _trust_ the man with the golden eyes, and so Creyfon was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. Nothing more.

“You’re a Shunter, are you not?” the man went on.

Creyfon scowled. “I don’t Shunt.”

“But you _can._ The only reason you don’t, in fact, is because you’re terrified you’ll end up in the dimension of the Faceless Ones again.”

“That’s quite an interesting fact. Was your colleague torturing Eliza Scorn?”

“I don’t care what happened in the tunnels, Creyfon. Lord Vile is dead, and that’s all I’m concerned with regarding _that_. I’m much more interested in you.”

“In my Shunting abilities, you mean.”

“No.” The man with the golden eyes smiled. “They’ll be useful, if you say yes, but I’m not bartering for your skills. I’m asking for your help.”

“Right.” Creyfon barked out a laugh. “And where’s the catch?”

“There’s no catch. You know about me, I’m sure, from some of the rumours circulating. I have a plan that I would need your help with, but if I have to come up with something different, I will.”

“And I leave Roarhaven, or face the consequences.”

“Of course not. This is your home. No one’s going to run you out of town, Creyfon. People might start giving you dirty looks, but no one’s going to touch you.”

Creyfon hesitated. He’d thought the rest of Roarhaven followed the man with the golden eyes because he threatened them, or bamboozled them somehow. He didn’t think the big secret was honesty. Simple, plain, and open _honesty._ He didn’t know what to think. “What is this plan?”

“I want to build a city populated solely by sorcerers. I want to keep this city as secret as possible, until it’s completed. I need to make the rest of the world willing to listen, before I reveal it.”

“So hide the city in the wilderness.”

The man shook his head. “Much too big, and too much chance of discovery. I need a guarantee no one can simply stumble across it.”

Creyfon’s eyes widened as the full implication finally sank in. “You want to build it in an alternate dimension.”

“I do.”

“You’re _insane_.”

“I am. And you’re the only Shunter alive with the power to find a habitable one. One without Faceless Ones, preferably.”

“If I agree to help, what would my reward be?”

“Nothing.”

“Ah.” Creyfon bowed his head. “The catch.”

“How is it a catch, Creyfon, if I’m telling you about it up front?”

“Why should I do this, if not for a reward?”

“You’re a smart man. I should think the promise of a world where no one has to hide, a world where sorcerers can take their rightful place out in the open, would be reward enough.”

Creyfon thought about it. “This city – you would use it as an example? Make the rest of the world follow?”

“That’s been the plan from the very beginning.”

“Then I’m in.”

The man with the golden eyes smiled. “I thought you might be.” He turned, and walked away. “Madame Mist will contact you. She’s in charge of the project.”

“Not you?”

“Not me.”

Creyfon frowned. Stranger and stranger. “What are you going to be doing?”

The man waved a nonchalant hand in the air. “I’ll be doing what I always do. Being patient, watching, listening, and pretending to be a respectable man.”

~~

It was a grey, drizzly and rainy morning in the spring of 1923. Skulduggery had skipped some much-needed meditation in favour of standing in the same spot all night, hood down and scarf hanging somewhere around his shoulders. The rain was starting to make pools of water in the little hollows around his skull, which had long ago become spectacular miniature waterfalls splashing down into his ribcage.

He couldn't see those waterfalls or pools, but he could feel them. If someone had asked, he would have said it felt remarkably like he was crying.

"That suit," said a mournful voice from behind him, "is never going to be the same again."

Skulduggery turned to see Ghastly, then turned back. "I wore a coat."

"I noticed. What does it feel like?"

"Remarkably like I'm crying."

Ghastly hesitated. "I meant how does the coat feel, drenched on top of the already-drenched suit. I was chastising you."

"I know."

Ghastly stepped into place beside Skulduggery, looking down at the ground. "The war's over, you know."

"Is it? My official detective's position with the Sanctuary must have been trying to fool me, then."

"There's no more point in standing and staring at graves. Or a reason. How long have you been out here?"

Skulduggery sighed. "Since the funeral ended nine hours ago."

"Someone you knew?"

"No. I just think the gravestone is elegant."

Ghastly smiled sadly and shook his head. "Not everyone's death is your fault, Skulduggery. Not everything's your responsibility."

"Hm? Oh, no. This one was mortal. Lived to the ripe old age of 172 before dying peacefully in his sleep of nothing more than old age. I'm just paying my respects."

"172?" Ghastly asked, his brow furrowing. "A mortal, born in... 1751? You're pulling my leg, Skul."

"He had magic, to an extent. Not much. He was always interested in Elemental magic, but he was never any good at it. I tried to tell him to experiment to find out what worked best, but he wouldn't listen. Pity he wasn't born in this time period. He could have become a therapist. A therapist for sorcerers. He and Hopeless could have opened up a business."

"Sounds like you knew him well."

Skulduggery shook his head. Water went flying from his skull. "Only ever met him the once. He... left an impression."

"Who was he?"

Skulduggery's hand dipped into his coat pocket. "Edmond Walsh. I knew him as James. He was a potato farmer when I came across him, but to be fair, I was a wreck when he came across me. We helped each other get back to normal. Well, after he tried to steal my leg, anyway."

"He tried to steal your _leg_?"

"I was unconscious at the time." Skulduggery stepped closer to the grave.

"Paying your respects to a semi-mortal who died of old age. No regrets, then?"

Skulduggery hesitated. "Not... as such, no. I can only think of the one."

"And that is...?"

"That I didn't get to give this to him when he was still alive."

Skulduggery's hand came out of his coat pocket to reveal a small bottle of olive oil. It was high-class, a very expensive Italian brand smuggled through customs, and - he'd been assured - tasted like the food of the gods. He examined it one last time, as if the oil might have changed when he wasn't looking, and then he set the bottle carefully down beside the gravestone. Rainwater immediately began to pour into a waterfall over it, and Skulduggery stepped back with a satisfied nod.

"Waste of some good olive oil," Ghastly muttered.

"Only if you would otherwise eat it."

"I thought you weren't a very sentimental man."

"I'm not. He asked for this." Skulduggery tipped his head back to stare up into the rain-drenched sky, letting water fill the back of his skull through his eye sockets. "I'm just returning a favour."


End file.
